The Missing Page

The poem that follows is about the last words I may ever speak to my beloved mother. I was many miles away, and the attending nurse held a cell phone to her ear. I am told that she showed some awareness of my voice, but there is no way of knowing whether she understood what was said to her or who was saying it. She made no effort to speak, and her eyes remained fixed on a slowly turning ceiling fan.

 

As I reflected on that experience, it occurred to me that I was not trying to recall the last moments I spent in conference with a loved one, but a soliloquy that is lost in the deepest part of my sorrow. In brief, I recall telling her that everything good was on the other side and that she had succeeded as a person, as a wife and mother, and as a child of God. But I spoke to her for at least thirty minutes and said many things that I no longer remember.

 

The Missing Page:

Words That Dwell

With the Dead

 

-U-

 

I did not know if you could hear

The words I muttered in your ear,

As you were taken with the light

That fell upon the tears of night

 

I only know that things were said

That freed a soul to join the dead,

Where all are kept behind a door

With good and ill forevermore

 

But I am lost, as I have aged

And cannot find a missing page

That I would read again for you

If you could hear and I could do.

 

Oh, how it seemed as if I stood

Upon a step of almond wood;

And in a flood of faith, so pure,

Poured all I love into your ear

 

I think I said that you were free

To be at peace and not with me;

I think I said that I would stay

Until our book is put away

 

I did not know if you could hear

The words I muttered in your ear;

I only know that things were said

That dwell forever with the dead.