That Last Holly Day (c) MarySusan Williams-Migneault (c) 1978 Revised FEB 2008

A Poem by RHP

Autobiographical poetic memoir of my mother who passed away December 27, 1977.

...That Last Holly Day

You were standing at the counter staring.
A tear dropped onto the jaggered crack
making its way from one side to the other
across the bottom of the yellow stoneware
your husband's mother taught you to cook
family secrets for my father in.

Curled and crinkled pasta strips,
swirled with mozzarella, ricotta and sausage meat,
the tomato gravy bubbling over the sides,
split in half by fifty years of service
to the man you vowed to love, honor and obey.

A man that provided a home, little ones to love and hold
to you his beloved, who came in his hour of need
so many years ago to raise his first wife's children:

One a newborn son, his first breath his mother's last,
the other a daughter, not even two-yrs old
who would forget and know only you

A mother who stands there staring,
head bowed so none could see your tears,
scraping your last casserole into another bowl.

We sat at the Christmas tablewaiting.
We did not know. We could not know.