Prayer for My Mother

Let every moment of every day
break upon her with the dazzle of
utter newness, and let her exult in it.

Let wonder rule: the sky more lovely
than she's ever seen, the birds that
come by the hundred to her feeder.

Please let her forget that she does not
remember. Let her lose somehow
the torment of losing her mind.

Let there be insight in the one page that,
over and over for days, she reads
for the first time, never gets beyond.

Let the living past be vibrant in her
dreams each night, her mother, her brother
at her side, showering her with love.

Please let her eyes open in the morning
not to the despair of the lost at sea,
but to the familiar play of sunlight

in the leaves outside her window,
the solid sense that she is safe,
the firm ground of home.