Earth Day Anniversary

Twenty years ago today we scattered my mother's ashes.

I put my two Japanese Chins in the car and stopped for my girl friend who was giving moral support. She was waiting for me on the stoop of her Boston townhouse and was dressed in sneakers and jeans. "Emily Post couldn't tell me what to wear to an illegal scattering of ashes of a women I didn't like on Earth Day."

I seldom write poetry, but that day produced this

Scattering Her Ashes

Clumps of sodden earth
cling to our boots.
The forest whispers,
whines.
A brook, too full,
complains,
falling over itself.
A bird,
trills a prayer for
no more rain.

My brother, carrying the
cardboard carton,
goes first.
As he pushes through brush
he forgets to hold a branch.
It hits me like another one
forty years ago
in a different wood.

We come to a meadow with
last year's grass
engraved in mus.
He lays the carton
on the ground.
"Here."
Inside a plastic bag.
We each take a corner.
The wind catches the powder,
lifts and plays creating a mini cloud
too close to earth.

I think
how much power
that powder once held.
How little power now.
Done.
We walk back
trapped
in our ancient silences.