Your Birthday Card

7 Comments

  • wheelsal
  • It is a new year and I can't wait to read all my friends new poetry.

Poem Commentary

My son would be fifty next August 20, 2011. He was killed by a drunk driver. The car burned and he died of his burns. This is a Mother's lament.

Your Birthday Card

You left this world twenty-four years ago.
I watched in horror your burned departure-
A lasting lump weighted with all my tears.
Today memory looms a misty blur.

Surely years defy illusions casting
Away such lumps that quicken all my tears.
Yet-anniversaries-death days, birthdays,
Memories keep calling me all these years.

Years pile upon my heart with heartlessness.
Another year put away with such waste
Of life, so young, breathing eternity
Leaving mom with poems, shoes and faded taste.

A taste of music, a tenor, a guitar,
A lark free and singing without his cage.
One year, two years, ten years, twenty years
Gone, but I've never counted all my rage.


Another year, and you would be fifty-
Another birthday-these embers never die-
I'll fuel them with a party and my card
To burn my love into the waiting sky.

Poem Comments

(7)

Please login or register

You must be logged in or register a new account in order to
leave comments/feedback and rate this poem.

Login or Register

copergirl commented on Your Birthday Card

01-12-2011

So sad but you have the gift of sharing and making the reader feel your pain--a pain no mother should have to endure...

StandingBear commented on Your Birthday Card

11-22-2010

Dear Sally, your deep loss is felt within the hearts of all your poet friends. Bear

kdarcy commented on Your Birthday Card

07-21-2010

Everyone feels loss, its in the fondness and love of remembering that continues to give life. A mothers pain is all her own, women are the stronger in many ways. You party and read the card, thanks for sharing.

wheelsal

07/21/2010

Thank you for your visit. I'm not on here very much any more. Time is my problem, but love this sight.

kdarcy

07/21/2010

Enjoy it when you can, I'm sure people enjoy your visits, be well

gmcookie commented on Your Birthday Card

07-03-2010

Wheelsal, this is a touching tribute to those departed who never, really, leave us. Perhaps, this poem might give you one more perspective from which to look at your loss: http://www.originalpoetry.com/death-does-not-equivocate I have lost friends and lovers over the years... But they are still there in my heart.

wheelsal

07/04/2010

Thank you so much for your comment. We have all lost loved ones. Trying to tell the story is always another poem. Sally

Chaos128 commented on Your Birthday Card

07-03-2010

A Cantonese custom, to send greetings and gifts to departed loved ones in the smoke of a ritual flame. I have no doubt it is deeply appreciated and will be greatly remembered on the day when all of us are reunited.

wheelsal

07/04/2010

Should have known this has been done before. Thanks for your comment and visit. Sally

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech writer.

wheelsal’s Poems (13)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Romanian and American Passion 1
Taking Down the Christmas Tree 2
Your Birthday Card 7
A Visit to the Cemetery (Memorial Day 2010) 9
A Walk 16
Haiku is Heavenly 7
Fun with Cinquain 6
Color me Spring 5
Salt and Pepper 4
Music within my Soul 12
Sonnet to You, My Love 9
Wind Mills 11
Requiem to my Husband 11