The Poem That Helped Me on Friday

I was sitting by my mother's hospital bed exchanging messages with a friend far away. I remembered a poem he wrote decades ago about when his mother had fallen. My friend Dave Alvin wrote this and I am counting on him not to mind my sharing it here. Interestingly enough, when I took it down from the shelf, a package of Kachina stickers fell out of the book that contains this poem. 

Dave has a beautiful collection of Kachinas--outside the Heard Museum's, it is the best I have ever seen.

Also, I am reminded that he included me in the acknowledgements and now it is my turn to thank him yet again for the perfect words--not just the timeless songs, but these great poems that he concocts. Happy New Year, Dave and everyone who stops by and reads this. See you down the road.

His book is called Any Rough Times Are Now Behind You. If you don't own it, you ought to.

My Mother Fell

by Dave Alvin

My mother fell this afternoon

My mother fell

and hit her head on Grandmother's

jagged wooden table.

Strips of her flaky skin

clung to the table's sharp edge.

I let go of her.

I let go of her because

she said she was cold.

I left her standing alone

in her walker

as I went for her sweater.

But the drugs

or the chemotherapy

had taken away her coordination

and she lost her balance

in her walker

and she fell.

I let go of her.

My  mother fell this afternoon

like she was a baby

taking her first steps.

The pink skin of her forehead

quickly turned purple.

A small slash of blood

dripped into her half-closed eyes.

My mother fell this afternoon

and my tears fell into her eyes

as I tried to lift her back up.

My mother fell this afternoon.

My tears with her blood.

My mother fell this afternoon.

My mother fell.