Broom Zen

This morning I’m spending time with my sheltie, Echo, who is departing this world today. Here is another poem of saying goodbye, inspired by a dear friend at Heathcote:

Charles’ mother is dying.
He has planed
800 miles.
Now he sweeps
Her kitchen.
Back home this is his
After-dinner chore.
He sweeps the hall,
2 seconds per stroke
By the mantle clock.
“Get the stairs while
You’re at it,”
His father says.
He sweeps the living room
And the porch.
He sweeps the lawn.

His mother is awake.
She asks of his plans.
He talks of job changes.
She takes out 3 papers
And crunches numbers
On the first.
Charles makes
Clarifying calculations
On the second.
She rests.

And Charles waltzes the broom.

He spreads out the pages–
Her handwriting, his;
The choreography of cursive.
And one more…
He takes the unused page,
With a pause for
All symphonies in the ether,
Unwritten,
And drags his dustpile
Onto the page
With his mother’s broom.

–Wren Tuatha

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