And now my mother is the person I call when I can’t get out of bed and it’s already after ten, where I am now, at the end of the second year, when I’m not crying every second but wish I could. And when she says I know, her tone is so kind, as if all of the kindness in the world is concentrated in the quiet timbre of her ninety-three years. As if it’s turned to roses, pink—like her cheeks and her cashmere sweater—its fullness the honeyed petals of the Peace Rose, the spicy center of the flower, and then there’s a bit of rough edge somewhere down near her voice box that tears at her words like thorns would. And because the whole flower of kindness is in her voice, not some sweet platitude, I can get out of bed—late as it is—careful to mute the phone so she doesn’t hear the covers turning over or my steps on the stairs, the coffee canister opening. Muting and unmuting as we remember our dead husbands, the nights rolling dark and numberless before us.
Julie Murphy’s poems appear or are forthcoming in How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, Atlanta Review, Written Here: Community of Writers Poetry Review 2019, Massachusetts Review, The Buddhist Review, CALYX, Common Ground Review, The Louisville Review, Red Wheelbarrow, and The Alembic, among other journals. A licensed psychotherapist, Julie developed Embodied Writing™, a somatic approach. She teaches poetry, as a volunteer, at Salinas Valley State Prison. Julie lives in Santa Cruz, California.
**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.
It's so lovely, the link between mother and daughter, knowing, seeking, giving, receiving.
So moving, the "whole flower of kindness"