And now before dawn,
a storm rages just
outside the sliding
glass door,

the suddenly bare
branches of our
family trees
shivering, dripping,

as one of us inside
is leaving, one whose
storms once raged
though this house.

She lies quietly now
in the family room
where we all watched
Sullivan and Disney,

occasionally shifting
her much smaller self
in the rented bed,
syllables falling

like raindrops from
her parched mouth:
Donna, Donna, Donna,
and my sister responds,

I’m here, Mom—what do
you need? She can’t say much:
up, achy, help, no.
We move her from side

to back and later to other
side. We change her as we
used to change the babies,
rolling them over to affix

new drawers into which
they can pee, though she
resists this, wants to make
one more slow march down

the hall with the walker,
though the legs that once
jogged and water skied will
no longer support her.

So we do, sitting this vigil
at the family home by the lake,
keeping watch by night
and into a new day,

while outside the window,
something has relented—
stillness after such storm,
the trees finally at rest.