Mother; An Elegy

My nephew wrote the following poem to be read as my mother's ashes were left, close by my father's, in the garden of remembrance at a London Crematorium.


An Elegy

A memory somewhere
Between a glow and an ache
Your hands heavily veined
Blue, like
The veins of a violet
Skin petal soft.

I remember
The sweaters you knitted for me as a child,
The blue rinse, the strong tea in bone china
The diaries in which you meticulously
Noted the price of a steak and red wine dinner in Coz
My grandfather and David on a fishing boat under the midday sun
Sledging in the fading lilac light, and the fear
The fear of almost everything, and yet
A fear that must have been overcome
Pushing a pram and a child up a small street
In Norwood as the sirens wailed.
 
A memory somewhere
Between a glow and an ache
A single pink carnation
In a vase
In a drab service station near Kinross.
And pity is something
We learn for our elders
Perhaps too late.

For me this poem evokes fond memories of my mother with precision.; the medium is apt.
Thank you John.