-3
Somewhere in these weather-beaten
Memories
She hopes to find,
Where a little girl hides
In the shadows
And corners
Of her mind.
Through each room
She follows flashback
Snapshots,
Voices of ghosts,
Images caught and lost.
She searches the past-
Jumbled questions
She has for so long
Been afraid to ask,
Through the front room
The old window well,
The bedrooms,
The tiny kitchen,
And a low-doored
Pantry “cell.”
She closes her eyes
To hear-
There still remains
A little girl’s voice,
Sobbing yet clear-
Could she dare remember?
The old cold
Spear of fear
Rushes through her
As she approaches
The Pantry door,
Even now it was
As it had been before.
She kneels low,
Pushes on hands and knees-
Again she feels,
Again she sees-
Her mother,
Bent over on the floor.
The telephone cord
Pulled around and beneath the door.
-4-
Her mother grips the phone
To her breast,
Her hair hangs
Down over her face,
Deep from her chest
She sobs,
Over and over she cries,
“Please God, not dead!
Please God, not dead!”
The words echoe,
Even now
Through all those torn years,
A mother long forgotten
Remains the ghost
At the bottom of her fears.
The seas,
On that night-
Over forty years ago-
Had grown to a rage.
A night of live and die.
A night when those who survived
Would admit,
“Lucky to be alive.”
The oil rig had toppled,
The hurricane winds so severe,
Waves so high,
Rescue efforts had to wait.
All were abandoned
That night
To the sea
And to fate.
Her mother’s eyes
Never returned
To the same shinning green.
They wore a deep guilt,
A deep sadness,
A deep shame.
continued
on next page
|
