Doug Anderson: Mother Death

Week doesn’t go by I don’t think of them,
the men I couldn’t help,
watched their lips turn blue then
rattle out their soul it’s not easy
to concentrate with the rounds coming close
splintering the trees all around,
like I sent my body out there to do that
while the rest of me hid
somewhere metaphysical and watched.
Those of us who didn’t die out there
are old now and see a more gentle death
just outside the periphery
of our second sight she’s a mother
taking us back into her she’s a lover
reaching for us to come into her.

—

Copyright 2015 Doug Anderson