(in memory of Mom
July 6, 1931 – Dec. 21, 2024)

Driving home at noon, coming down
what was in our day a two-lane
road with a stop sign, I was
compelled to halt by a trio of lights
on a tall standard leaning over
the road like a leafless tree.

And there, next to a median,
lay a furry black-and-white
creature who had likely waddled
across the now four-lane road
when its luck ran out.

I had Strauss’ majestic tone poem
playing on my phone, knowing
that death and transfiguration
were imminent in the house
I had just left, too.

And with the scent of onions,
rotten eggs and burnt rubber
reaching me through the window
on that foggy, foggy day, I felt
my eyes cloud, then moisten,
releasing their brand of rain.

I didn’t know if they were for
the dead skunk or the beauty
of the music swelling to its
majestic peak, then gently
drifting upward, like fog lifting,
as I hoped she might ascend,

which she did several days later,
rising above it all into two
of her favorite elements—
pure light and limitless blue.

•••

You can listen (as I have been) to the finale of Richard Strauss’ “Tod und Verklärung” (“Death and Transfiguration”), a tone poem for orchestra written when Strauss was 25 years old—this moving version performed by the U.S. Marine Band.