Visitation by Jo Angela Edwins

Visitation

In my hands silk flowers
the colors of November,
rich and dark as
my mother loved,
and I begin to bend
in late afternoon gold
warmer than the season
should allow.
The cemetery is bright
and quiet. Until
the wind rises, and I hear
a rush behind me.
I turn my head,
straighten my back,
stare at the wild pear tree,
leaves the color of flame.
It shivers in wind,
blazes billowing. Still
I stare. I don’t move.
I think of Moses listening
to the voice of God.
In Sunday school the teachers
read it slow and thundering,
a chastening bluster,
the angry father insisting
his children bow and scrape.
Perhaps it was instead
this tender whisper.
Perhaps it was instead
the hushed singing
of our mothers, their breath
tousling our hair,
their voices falling
around our weary shoulders like
manna, like sunlight.

by Jo Angela Edwins

Editor’s note: Vivid imagery carries this narrative from memory to faith to a blessed realization of the persistence of love.