Scattering my mother's ashes

April 22nd will be the 30th anniversary of scattering my mother's ashes.

I put Albert and Amadeus, my Japanese chins in the car and picked up my girl friend Susie, who was sitting on the front steps of her Boston townhouse.

"I looked at Emily Post to see what you should wear to an illegal ash scattering of someone you didn't like," she said. She had opted for jeans and sneakers, reasonable for a walk through the woods.

I laughed. She was there to support me. We met up with my brother who brought the ashes to the woods behind my mother's apartment complex. She loved to look into the woods although she thought it was awful that teenage boys and girls wandered in to do ? the ? being her imagination.

After the scattering we went to McDonald's and even bought hamburgers for the dogs.

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
forty years ago
in a different wood.

We come to a meadow with
last year's grass
engraved in mud.
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 ash once held.
How little now.
Done.
We walk back
trapped
in our ancient silences.