AT HER DEATH-BED              RGAaPoet@aol.com

	    (In Memoriam: for Eugenie, my mother)

	Her honey-coloured cheeks, grown pale with death,
	Cold to my touch like a dew-wetted stone --
	Their beauty faded, aged, lacking breath,
	Were scrolls of skin draped loosely over bone.

	In wracking pain, I knelt beside the bed
	On which she lay in death's eternal night,
	And wept a flood of tears about her head,
	While moths droned mournfully in candle-light,
	And shadows grieved like sorrows on the floor,
	And voices swelled within the outer room
	In elegies and hymns unheard before.

	In humble love, I made my heart her tomb ...

	And grateful tongues composed her epitaphs
	With simple, heart-felt words that glowed with praise.
	Kind strangers craned through windows like giraffes,
	Then murmuring sadly, went their separate ways;
	And through the pall of grief, I seemed to hear
	A soft voice saying:  "My child, do not weep.
	Your mother always had been kind and fair
	To everyone!  Her love was rooted deep
	In understanding, and she was so dear
	In always being there with a helping hand;
	She's earned a place in Heaven; have no fear.

	Someday, you'll meet her in a better land."

	I whispered "Amen." to the halcyon voice
	That stilled the storm of sorrows in my heart.
	Around the lights, the moths seemed to rejoice.
	In me, a song of gladness strove to start --

	And in the room, her spirit seemed to stir.
	The clock ticked time's eclipse, but not for her.

	Copyright (c) 1960, 1980, 1995 by Ronald G. Auguste