Calving Season

Today would have been Mom’s 80th birthday. Shortly before she went to Heaven, I wrote this for her. I think God gave me a kindness, because He made sure I could share it with her. And although Mom could barely speak, her blue eyes told me she could still hear.
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Calving Season
for Mom

I remember the exact moment
my Mother told me
she would miss
calving season the most,
if she ever had to leave the farm.

Mid-morning light had reached
through yellow curtains
across the kitchen table,
graceful and slow-falling
against her cheek.

I rather thought
it would have been the autumn,
when endless dust
of harvest ended
under a full moon,
and family gathered for evening grace.

And how it was right then
I knew she should never leave—
this woman who birthed me
to the music of an August dawn storm,
who knew even when I arrived,
that like her,
any city wanderings I might know
would leave me lost in a way
that a midnight country road never could.