at my mother's grave: this memory keeps

From time to time I visit my mother's grave—drive to Valley Forge Park, park in the shade by the Washington cathedral, and go down the hill and around to the left, and up another hill.  Deer are often standing in the woods just past her stone.  Little Alex of Alex's Lemonade Stand rests just two stones to the right. The church chimes sing a song.  (I always wait long enough for the song.)

During one of my very first trips to my mother's grave, I carried this ornamental instrument, not quite an oboe, but close enough.  We had all sung to my mother in her final days, Christmas songs and hymns, and this delicate piece felt symbolic, lodged, emblematic of my brother's loved wind songs. The earth at Valley Forge has been snowed over, flooded, hailed, gusted, and baked in the years since.  My father has planted new fringes of flowers.  Deer have stuck their noses close, but somehow the reedy instrument is undaunted.  I found it again, just last week, when I went to say hello.

This memory keeps.