Adapting to Motherless Mother's Days

I’ve enjoyed writing for many years. I'm dedicating more time to the craft in my retirement days.

Word Prompt = Adapt

Congrats to my friend Brenda Arledge on her 52nd Edition of "Word Prompts Help Creativity." It's been a long and productive run for Brenda, and for the HP community writ large. Much has changed since edition one came out more than a year ago...but the community still thrives despite all the changes. That is the very definition of adapting, I do believe.

Though I have not participated in each and every challenge, I've attempted several along the way. This latest response approached me on Mother's Day 2022 as I was remembering my mom, who passed away suddenly in 2013 of a heart attack. I miss her everyday, and miss her profoundly on Mother's Days. Perhaps I'll never adapt.

Adapting to Motherless Mother's Days

If I could call you today

Here’s what I’d say

But I can’t

Phone works fine

Better than the rotaries

With the party line

From my time

As a kid

When the neighbor could listen

And did

Human nature and all

I digress

And I'm just getting started

Already broken-hearted

Anyway...

Happy Mother's Day

Is what I’d say

If you were here

To hear

Today

But instead

I'm lamenting

Even after these many years

Resenting

Your goneness

My orphanness

It’s sunny now

On this Sunday

Mom’s day

And partly clear

But like an overused metaphor

I’ve overused it, for sure

And reused it

Many times

Making rhymes

Telling sad stories

Piecing together words

To silly, unrequited love songs

That never get heard

Or poems that never get read:

It will rain this afternoon

That’s the metaphor

And my eyes will fill

At the same time

And I’ll hear the score

In my mind’s ear

From Butch and Sundance

Unwritten words

“No lyrics found,”

The search says

And yet I can hear the phrase

Ba ba ba ba ba ba

Badaba ba badaba baba

From “South American Getaway,”

And think back to days

When I was young

And you were, too

And I miss that you

The one

Who danced and sung

Like nobody was watching

Even though we kids

We always did

We watched

Maybe we didn’t know what to think

Were you approaching the brink?

Whoever else is so care free

And footloose

And loving life?

What a great lesson

To pass on

To little ones

For when they grow

To be big ones

In a world

Everchanging

Needing some rearranging

Stranging

Truther than fiction

The evening news depiction

The unending friction

Between divided sides

Hard not to be rapt

And hard to adapt

To a division

That deep

And wide

Deep

And wide

Deep

And wide

So not nice

Let's say it thrice

And today

I can’t hide

Way down inside

That even though I’ve tried

To adapt

To a world without you in it

There never passes a minute

An event

A thing

A moment

That doesn’t remind

Of those times

When I was very young

And you were young, too

And when it was this special day

All those long years away

From today

I remember I’d say,

"Happy Mother’s Day!"

And work to make it that way

Something better than just ok

And you’d always say,

“Thank you, my son

So far, it’s been a good one.”

And sometimes pictures were snapped

For posterity

And now as I look at them I see

In brightest Kodachrome 3D

All those fond memories

And I know it’s going to be

Impossible for me

To adapt completely

To Motherless Mother’s Days

"South American Getaway" from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

© 2022 greg cain