The Way Of Things

My mother once said of you
that you used to run like the wind

She, not given to flowery language,
has probably always loved you--
and you her, I suppose--
beyond that typical idea of love,
too big and simple for words.
But I believed her, trusting too much
in the heartfelt metaphors of a farmgirl
to fall prey to the skepticism of rusty cliches,
those ankle-traps of language
Which so often keep me earthbound...

...like the marks left on you
by the way of things.

Who knew that year after tireless year
you would grow old,
until bone rubbed bone
and the wind ran too fast to wait up?

Who foresaw
(and did not warn of)
what was coming? The papering
of your skin, becoming more transparent each year,
until you rustled
alongside my mother,
autumn leaves on the same tree

Nikki Hilla