Poem: All The Way from Ohio, She Was Crying

All The Way from Ohio, She Was Crying

Her mother is not dead,
not yet, but she is mourning,
already.  She would stay,
would be there daily
until the day's are through.
It is unclear how long it is,
how many days or weeks
or months.  Is it a year?
No one gives those answers.
A year feels so long, though,
feels too long.  Each day,
she has cried for her mother,
cried for her, not over her death,
not only because she is dying.
It is her mother who is dying,
who will be gone from her,
but she knows her mother's age,
she knows her mother
is an old woman already.
Dying is the thing expected of the old.
That is not the tragedy.
There is a tragedy, but
it is not the death, is not that.
She wishes she knew
her mother had been happy, once.

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