Today Is Mom's Birthday

[greenstorm]

Not bird not badger not beaver not bee

Many creatures must
make, but only one must seek

within itself what to make

My father's ring was a B with a dart
through it, in diamonds against polished black stone.

I have it. What parents leave you
is their lives.

Until my mother died she struggled to make
a house that she did not loathe; paintings; poems; me.

Many creatures must

make, but only one must seek
within itself what to make

Not bird not badger not beaver not bee

*

Teach me, masters who by making were
remade, your art.



Lament For the Makers
by Frank Bidart

I got her a James Barber cookbook. One-pot wonders. And more love than can possibly exist in such fragile flesh as I.