(for Mom)

When you get where you’re going—
and clearly there’s no way to know
where that might be, or even if there
is a where—we know that you’ll look
around and see who you might see.

Maybe you’ll have landed in an
eternal Sweet Adelines show
where everyone sings beautifully—
you and all kinds of ladies dolled up
in fringe and way too much rouge
and blue eye shadow.

With luck, you’ll find your favorite
chorus buddies there—Carolyn and
Gwen and Lil and Maddie, among
many others—and, without a thought,
you’ll fall into perfect harmony.

And, of course, we hope you might
find Father, bygones long gone,
just the love remaining, as with
your parents and sister.

And perhaps all the puppies and
kitties you raised and nurtured
and found homes for—some of them
at our house—will scamper to greet you,
along with your nursing school buddies
and high school friends and others you’ve
forgotten who’ve not forgotten you.

Maybe this is all fanciful human thinking,
like Julie who hoped she’d be assigned
to rainbow duty. Maybe you who dreamed
of star travel will become so many points
of light, energy zinging around the universe,
back to our elemental origins, what we were
before we were us.

No way to know, of course. But drop us
a postcard, or the universal equivalent,
once you’re bouncing around in mystery,
will you? We’d love to hear about
the view from your side.

Here on ours we’ll remember
you, think of so much we wish
we’d asked, eyes moistening every
time that we hear that other Dorothy
sing the song that brought technicolor
into your young world—

you over the rainbow at last,
you beaming in every time
that full spectrum arc
lights the sky.