As the sun set,
On the eve of my mother’s birthday,
She took her last breath
At the very same minute she took her first
Seventy-three years before.
Her heart stopped
And her body surrendered to the galactic spiral.
She left through the Lionsgate,
The portal of her birth and her death.
I followed closely behind,
Holding her familiar hand.
The worlds of the living and the dead became one
As we traveled through the veils.
June bugs, ancestors dressed in emerald green garb,
Greeted us on our crossing.
Mourning doves cried.
Bumble bees burrowed into purple clover.
Black-eyed Susans stared.
Summer boiled over with heat and with color
While death’s midnight doubles danced in the shadows.
When I felt Autumn’s cold breath on the back of my neck
I stepped back over the threshold
And released my mother’s hand.
She reached through the branches
Of an old chestnut tree.
Five long pendant leaves fluttered
Waving good-bye.
