A Thousand Words

    So, for her birthday, the people at the nursing home gave my mom a balloon and took a birthday picture, among the saddest and loveliest pictures I've seen. Kind of crazy, though, since my dad visited every day. They could have waited until he was there; you'd think somebody would have known that she had a daily visitor. (I visited pretty often myself, but nothing like Dad.) This is a poem I wrote late last November; only took 8 years. This is for Anne Salmonsen Dantzler, June 18, 1923 - July 1, 2003.

1,000 Words

Sympathetic hunting magic
A picture, pictures
covering cave walls
The sweep of history, prehistory
trying to help us find our way
to help us in the hunt
for thoughts
ideas
anything at all.

Daughter, sister, wife, mother
loving and beloved
giving joy
and fake Ralph Kramden punches
and teaching tolerance
every day.

A photograph
the picture worth a thousand words
of a lady in a chair
and a balloon.
The balloon to celebrate
her birthday,
the 79th one.
She with an empty smile
in an empty face
with what ideas that might remain
locked in the prison
of her skull.