“Venerating You Still”

I have known you for more than half a decade,
From your first babbling to the delicate wisps of
Your angel soft hair with ribbon—
The way you loved purses of all sizes
Never thinking your hand too small,
And the melodies you’d compose at the
White French provincial—
From the funny way you slept with sprawled
Chubby legs and how you loved rice
Like the Chinese—
Dancing met your brightest smile like
Sunlight shooting from your sweet hazel eyes,
And oh, how gently you whispered in my
Ear, (a beautiful fairy child)—
Your long pink fingers, your favorite word
“Why” and always running far too fast
For your bitty feet—
From your many cats, your bunny, even bugs
To thrills and squeal;
The gentleness exuding with every touch
On Grandma’s flabby cheek.

How quickly you’ve forgotten your beauty under
Life’s burdens of suffering;
Your cross almost too unfathomable!
But I remember; memorizing was easy when
It came to your surrealism, your
Enchantment for solitude, poetry, and Chopin—
Your innateness to giving, loving, blessing
Small and great under your spell....
I cannot fathom forgetting!

I ask: “Do you think you’ve changed so much?”
No, you’ve only forgotten to remember,
Like the servant who goes the second mile
And charges nothing extra.

*Dedicated to my sister Liza who has forgotten who she really is but will someday remember.