My gift to you . . .

 

 

 "Bequeathal" was first published in The Raintown Review, Volume 7, Issue 2, December 2008, and subsequently in my Canadian collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis, 2014).

 

Bequeathal

For my children

 

Unlike the lilac bush that knows

its spikes will weather winter’s snows,

I’ve yet to find the wherewithal

to rightly come to terms with fall.

 

In forests full of empty nests,

withered boughs, November guests,

I seek but find no feathered thing,

no green remembrances of spring.

 

All that I have, now summer’s gone,

are love notes from a lexicon.

My gift to you, this fragile bud —

inheritance of ink and blood.