On the Anniversary of Her Death

Like sky maps sketched in the bird brains
of flocks and vees of geese
that fly

overhead, the contours and plains
of my late mother’s face
are dyed

deep in my genes, a treasured stain
that cannot be erased.
Outside,

frost stiffens and silvers remains
of leaves. Again, I say
goodbye.

Kim M. Russell, 24th July 2025

It’s Thursday and time to meet the bar at the dVerse Poets Pub, with Laura as our host, asking us to remember this!

Laura says: “Today we are considering moments in time that stand out from time; they are the momentous days we recall and revisit, year in and year out as holidays, as anniversaries. Formal or informal, they are replayed in memory and may even be attached to tokens.”

She has provided poems by Cecilia Woloch, Charles Reznikoff and Dylan Thomas as examples.

We are revisiting Emily Romano’s Memento poetry style, which consists of two stanzas, with six lines per stanza organised into two tercets. The syllable count per tercet is 8,6,2; 8,6,2, and the rhyme scheme is abc, abc. Our theme is a holiday or anniversary.

I’ve reworked an old poem from January 2021.

32 thoughts on “On the Anniversary of Her Death”

  3. Mothers fret stains, but honoring the ones that aren’t coming out is the special task of the poet. Good work conforming to the prompt — rhymes in the third line bower nicely.

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  13. Your poem is perfection, Kim. It touched my heart. I was eighteen when I married, nineteen when our son was born. The miracle of a long marriage ended for us after 22 years. In spite of it, we are close .. I love his wife and two daughters, plus two grandchildren .. we are the best example of a blended family.

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  14. Your poem is so lovely, as is the photo of your mom, Kim! I have to tell you that I was first drawn to your site because my mom was a teacher…which, sadly, seemed a contradiction. But no one’s perfect. Blessings to you as we start another week with Monday😊

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