Gracing the Shadows

She is a young girl again
serene in the hour before dark,
a mere hint of the woman
who mothered me evident
in growing shadows.

Between the pauses in which
she reaches for words
that don't surface easily now,
she tells me of tobacco fields,
of running barefoot on creek banks,
of nickel soda pops and iceboxes.

She tells how she walked dirt roads
to services in the country church
that still stands pristine among the pines,

how just last week, she laid flowers
in its cemetery, against gray stones
that bear the names of her mother and father.

She says she dreams of them most nights, now.
In her slumber, absent faces she has longed to see
for forty years come to her
from fallen silence.

She speaks of going Home,
of the brother and sisters, already gone,
and she knows, as I do,
soon, the family will be whole.

Her eyes are clear of regrets or sorrow
in leaving us for the family of her youth,
but in the center of my chest, a pang grows
like the violet hues now spreading
to end this pause before night.

Our day is falling below the horizon.
Remnants of sun rest on her face,
and in near-dusk, she shines like a child,
gracing the shadows
with light.