Handpicked

I walked alone from my house back to my mother’s body after she died.

Pressing steps to get back to the hands I had held for days, the hands I had studied for signs of leaving,

noticing how mine where becoming hers

I hand picked flowers & grasses on the way, somehow everything uniquely gorgeous, nothing seen as weeds

Everything felt honoring as I selected each stalk, stem, wild bloom that appeared on the way.

The plants along the beach front Seemed brighter than the day before, more resilient than ever from rocky salty well trodden road side

All of Life seemed to be reaching their fanned hands up to me as if to say—

“Pick me—Take me to her body”

Clenched in my hand a wild surge of grief, of love that never ends, hand picked, they had raised their hands, reached out to comfort me,

our resilience, our brilliance

Now living in every ordinary day on the way, a universal love that never lets go—

hand picked,

mine in yours—yours in mine

*for my mom on the anniversary of her death, for the universal mothering love of Life