WHEN MY MOTHER
When being unable to help my mother calling for my help
When my mother falling and not falling with her nor being able to lift her up
When wondering have I ever before held my mother’s weight in both arms
When imploring the innocent bystander, the spring air
When a family of three arriving and hearing my call
When the cheerful husband and father hurrying to us then quickly turning us over to his wife, the occupational therapist
When this gentle woman hoisting my mother, seemingly effortlessly by her waistband, the teenage daughter
looking on with calm expression
When my mother smiling again as thanks bled from our lips
When going inside to the house concert we had come for, to sweet fiddles and flutes and my heart
in wild adrenaline percussion
When my mother forgetting that anything had happened outside
When at intermission the paper slips bearing our names and e-mail addresses
When the guitar player announcing that the person whose name was drawn would be given a special gift of music
When telling myself that if my name is drawn this gift will belong to the one who lifted my mother up
When the one hand-picked to select a name being her teenaged daughter, the only member of the audience
under 45 years of age
When this magic girl on the threshold like Spring sitting among us
When never believing what is greater than us could know or care but with what precision the afternoon unfolding
When the musician asking the teenaged daughter to close her eyes, reach in, and take out a paper slip
When the first name drawn belonging to one who had left early and the slip officially discarded
When, closing her eyes again and drawing the second name, that of her mother, the ministering angel
When the music beginning again, and ever more deeply
When tears singing
