Ghost
At night, my mother still comes to me,
drowning in that rising tide
her body could no longer clear.
I reach out,
but she eludes me,
so close, it deludes me
into thinking once again I can save her.
"I am dying," she says,
as she did, the last week of her life.,
my hands in hers,
before falling into that
morphine-induced stupor,
the good doctor's attempts to ease her,
when all other thumbs in the dike had failed.
Deeper, she sank,
her greatest struggle begun,
with that raging water within.
My mother-
once able to cope
with whatever life brought
Wasn't it only yesterday?.
"I am dying," she repeats.
Her plea still resounds,
echoes in my head, as I jerk,
alert, wide-eyed, in my bed.
Her cry eats away at my soul,
carries me once more
down that river of limited time.
No, I could not save her.
Not then.
Not now.
Pris Campbell
Copyright 12/30/2000
Revised 5/23/2002
Music: Liebestraum
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