In a wide valley, where mountains

lean back from a carpet of lakes,

we spent a final mother’s day.

There, floating gardens are tended

from flat bottomed boats.

Lotus lilies eye the sky

and Kingfishers hover.

 

A last few hours together,

we wished it would not end

but life was cruel,

always good byes and tears.

How were we to know that –

we would never see her again or

feel her arms around us.

 

The moon watched, painting a

pale path on the muddy Jhelum.

Chinar trees combed the night

as the creaking boat took us

down stream to our school.

We sobbed quietly,

one on each side of her.

 

She died the next year,

thousands of miles away.

Cremated and scattered on the

desert sands of a small island.

Nowhere to place a flower,

yet if the rain falls

the desert blooms and she is there.

 
 
David Garlick, Victoria, May 1996