pictured words

a simple pairing of pictures and poetry

Category: Mother’s Day

May 10, 2026

Two Poems for Mother’s Day

The Mother of Alzheimer’s

Who birthed (unearthed)
This unwelcome invasion,
Or gave it the right
To hijack each occasion
Meant to endure and assure her
She’s loved. She belongs.

It ceaselessly wrongs her,
Assassinates her senses;
Condenses her being
To fleeting moments,
Thought amputation,
Self dislocation,
And few kin.

And it will win.

© Marie Elena Good, 2016


Mom’s Passing (2018)

She began speaking
of needing to get ready
for the bus (taxi?)

that would very soon
be arriving to take her.
If she knew where to,

she didn’t tell us.
Such questions were hard for her,
so we wouldn’t ask.

We’d just pack for her,
had she asked us to do so.
For years she couldn’t.

She couldn’t decide
what to take, or what to leave.
Empty her closet.

Sleep in the guest room,
as her bed was filled with clothes
she would take nowhere.

Now she couldn’t leave.
Couldn’t get up from her bed.
She didn’t know that.

She didn’t know that
she was on hospice care now.
She didn’t know that

her last fall would be
what interrupts this disease,
and its progression.

That it would still win,
but wouldn’t finish the race.
So she would win, too.

… and the “slow goodbye”
ended in twenty eighteen,
when she journeyed on.

© Marie Elena Good 2026

3 Comments
May 10, 2020

DEAR MOM,

49785991_10156355985593600_4577305840310026240_n

DEAR MOM,

I wonder if you smiled after tucking me in at night, as I yelled, “I love you and I like you,” until I heard you reach the bottom of the stairs.

When I was in high school, you and I would often walk Naples’ beach. I told you how much I enjoyed our beach walks.  You told me I would get a boyfriend, and would no longer choose to walk the beach with you.  I got that boyfriend, and spent a great deal of my waking hours with him.

I wonder if you smiled each time I asked you to walk the beach with me.

Even through my teen years, you made sure you were home when I got home from school.  You didn’t want me coming home to an empty house. You stopped whatever you were doing, and took time to talk.  Even then, I understood the blessing of that.

I wonder if you smiled whenever you remembered me telling you I appreciated coming home to you.

I believe early Alzheimer’s began to separate you from yourself.  I think you recognized that, and feared eventual separation from all of us.  Perhaps that’s why you began saying, “I love you.  You know that.”  You wanted to make sure your love for us was so deeply rooted that there was little risk of it getting lost somewhere in a possible future of unknowingness.  You know that.  That little phrase attached to I love you was part of who you were.  Yes, we knew that. You were kind, and good.  You loved well.

I wonder if you smiled somewhere inside when I whispered, “I love you and I like you,” in those final days when you were growing less responsive.

© Marie Elena Good, 2020

2 Comments
July 25, 2016

MOTHER’S DAY

13091901_10154003359141351_4276658190002327733_n

Photo by Deanna Marie Metts

All I wanted was to give you a gift –
A pretty something you could wear
On your wrist,
Or around your neck.
Something having nothing to do
With construction paper,
scissors,
or crayons.
Something purchased with paper money
From a department store.
Something wrapped in ribbon.

Now all I want is to give you a gift –
Something having nothing to do
With purchases
With paper money.
I want to give you

Sunny smiles,
Smooth sailing,
Sweet solace.

6 Comments
May 8, 2016

MOTHER OF ALZHEIMER’S

6910465-petal-fallen

Photo by Themes.com

 

Who birthed (unearthed)
This unwelcome invasion,
Or gave it the right
To hijack each occasion
Meant to endure and assure her
She’s loved. She belongs.

It ceaselessly wrongs her,
Assassinates her senses;
Condenses her being
To fleeting moments,
Thought amputation,
Self dislocation,
And few kin.

And it will win.

 

© Marie Elena Good, 2016

9 Comments
May 10, 2015

MARY’S SONNET

See Jean Keaton Inspired Art ... lovely cards available here: http://www.jeankeatonart.com/store/greeting-cards/mary-and-baby-jesus-greeting-card/.

“Mary and Baby Jesus” used with permission of artist.  See Jean Keaton Inspired Art … lovely cards  and frame-able art available here: http://www.jeankeatonart.com/store/greeting-cards/mary-and-baby-jesus-greeting-card/.

“So be it done to me as you have said.”
Yet, as the words released from my own tongue,
I did not understand the path I’d tread,
Nor anguish God would ask of one so young.

The visit of that night became surreal,
As mundane daily chores consumed my life.
I questioned, did I dream the whole ordeal?
For I was just a mother and a wife.

Then, jolted from this lulled complacency,
I watched in horror as they took my son
To torture him, and nail him to a tree,
And wailed myself when he cried, “It is done.”

I gazed upon the empty cross, and tomb,
In awe – I’d cradled God within my womb.

© Marie Elena Good

2 Comments