Several Octobers Ago
Holy water and blessings,
Four generations
In a gathering
At Saint Mark's Cathedral
On Capital Hill
And the wee Anglo Saxon was me,
Bequeathed into tomorrow
By the Bishop of Canterbury.
While Great Grandmother
And Grandmother and Mother,
In the nexus of the moment,
Were cast into memory,
Endless and days to be,
And have now all passed
Save for the infant me -
Last one standing
One Hundred-Thirty years
Of a Seattle family history.
Albeit, Great Grandmother -
Lucy Valerie Berry,
Grandmother - Lucy Lawton,
And Mother Carol Ann,
Still share the same epiphany
Of that Fall Sunday afternoon,
In October of Evermore
When love imbued encore,
And seeds of Forget-me-nots,
Spindrifting and broadcast
Against hills of Seattle green,
Playing in meadows of Rainier
and along the sea spray shore,
Bloomed then and forevermore,
And when passing along
The road near St. Mark's,
With Seattle General near by,
Where we both were born,
And sometimes framed and glimmering
In the same blue of my mother's eyes,
The Dover Apartments, to the West,
At the corner of Fifth and Marion,
Within sight, and still standing,
Between towers and monoliths,
And thus this triad bricolage -
This trilogy of the heart's opus,
Beckons its image flush with tears
And bids me stay and not wander
A better land -
Nay, for this be
The lodestone and fountainhead
That these three mothers of me
Gave auspice in the Alma mater
Of Love's immense eternity.
