The Solder of Limb Shade: A Mother's Day Poem

Where you are is not
where you are,
beneath the granite bench
and the heart-footed deer,
under cover, under the solder
of limb shade.

You are not sunk you are not skidded past
by wind.
You are not level, rise, diaspora, root,
nor the chime, pretty as it is,
above the stone field and its tulips.
But once, in a restaurant,
they played your song,
and the house that I have built from almost nothing
is hung about with birds.

You gave your final word
to me.
You said.
You are.