Searching for the light of love

This is a poem that I wrote recently about the passing of my mother Gretchen many years ago.  I incorporate one of my very favorite Ernest Hemingway quotes. 

Searching for the light of love

FOR GRETCHEN  & EH

When he was about to turn sixteen

his hero took a fatal shot to the heart

he spread her ashes on the lake

way up north in viking land

on a windy day with rain clouds bursting

he wrote a song and whispered it

as the flecks of her bones

ran through his fingers

those cheeks I kissed

those hands I held

slide through my fingers

like drops of rain

like salty tears

no mother will greet me at this day's end

i'm broken right now like I've never been

so I'll lean on our favorite writer's words

we are all broken

that's how the light gets in

we are all broken

that's how the light gets in

Whispering magical words in the driving summer rain

i understood your final gift

the huge cracks left in my broken heart

can only be filled with the light

of a great love as big as yours

no small love will do for your baby boy

he'll search this world as long as it takes

for a love light that fills all those cracks.

By Edward Storm