One thought drives out another, they say. I guess that's what happened yesterday. For the first time ever, in any way, I forgot it was my Mom's birthday. I owe my penchant for poems to her, and her love of the older forms — with rhyme and meter and compact craftsmanship. She wrote hundreds of poems, often giving them as gifts for birthdays and anniversaries. Her poetry was personal, accessible, and straightforward — beauty and grace in simplicity and reserve. My favorite was a poem she wrote for my birthday, titled Reflections. She wrote about the wonder of observing facets of their being (my Mom and Dad) in their children. I wish I could remember it, for like all her poetry, it is gone. It disappeared upon her death. Although she yearned to be published, she did not live long enough to have access to social media and the Internet, and the ability to share instantly with friends and family.

Like her, I searched for publishers, and like her, I discovered high walls, narrow tunnels, and the only well-lit, broad pathway — to the vanity press. Like her, I write personal poems: I write for me, for my friends, my family, and those like me. Like her, the poems I wrote to her are gone...and I cannot remember them...not even the very first one I wrote, at age 12, about Lincoln's brown study. Like her, the words come from within, and I am driven to write them down as they pour forth, and only then to craft them to match the music and images they bring.

I still miss her, everyday — and twice a much when my Muse is in residence. Happy 82nd birthday, Mom!

Mick

22

It's been twenty-two years, and I forgot!
Silly me, the date slipped out of my head...
Replaced by a maxim I've heard a lot:
That birthdays don't matter, when someone's dead.
She's been gone for more than twenty-two years.
Yet, I remember that day, as if new;
And standing her bedside deathwatch, in tears.
Yesterday, she would have been eighty-two.
Because she lived, and forged a family;
Because there never will be another
Just like her, I posit this homily,
On the just past birthday of my mother.
I'd rather celebrate, while here on Earth,
Not her death, but the treasure of her birth.

Mick McKellar
September 2012