Malignant normalcy

We stood on the
old stone steps,
my sister and I,
steps that watched
over Lake Huron and
there she was, my
mother, in the summer
of ’62,
drowning. Her arms flailed
over her head
in water that rushed
around her body as it
weakened, and yet, she
was saved, saved, saved.

Isn’t she a
child too? – Magdalena,
when they took
her father away,
it was the dawn
of endless tears
where terror resides –
no gentle rain here,
something rarely seen
these days. No
breathing of life
into the soil
that has died.
Terror does not
bring tomatoes
to the vine.
Terror leaves
only shrapnel
behind.
She was begging
for her father, a
father made
inconstant through
the vagaries of men
whose only vision
is a dollar well-spent.

The sole constancy 
in life 
is a parent 
who is constant.

The old stone steps are
gone now – over half a
century has passed and yet,
the wave that nearly
took my mother
still resides in me.

When the lion’s roar 
is read between the lines 
history isn’t kind 
to those who are unkind.