“POETRY SERIES — MIZPAH”

A Funeral for Disappointment

I’ll Mourn With Daisies

“Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean” תְּחַטְּאֵנִי בְאֵזוֹב וְאֶטְהָר Tehillim (Psalms), 51:9

Let’s mourn for disappointment at one solemn funeral.

Yes, I wasn’t loved as I might have been for my quirky, rocking, happy self. I’ll mourn with daisies, my spirit unseen, unheard.

My words tucked in, disregarded as dandelions gone to seed, Feeling the hem of velvet dress between my fingers silky like insides of iris, silent, in the back seat. I’ll mourn with purple sage.

Is it too late to wonder what I may be… if my parents sat with me peeling branches under the weeping willow tree. I’ll mourn with passion flowers, orange blossoms, willow branch.

I wanted to do my best with my daughter, Carmel Rose. I’ll mourn that, too. I gasped in unfamiliar storms, treading waters of parenting tests. I mourn my motherly mistakes with daily prayers for the one

whose joy I witnessed, who took me up steep steps to secret gardens of sunflowers, ladybugs, gnomes, opened a new place in my heart with a glance, a sentence. I’ll mourn with chrysanthemums, a choir of angels.

Thank you, ancestors who filled in.

*This poem is dedicated to my parents who sacrificed for me, and fostered my imagination, and to my daughter, who opened my heart to wonder. This poem originally was a more intellectual piece stating that disappointment is lack of patience and empathy, and let’s get over little and big ones quickly. But it evolved into an experience of grieving towards letting go.

Thank you, Paper Poetry’s Suntonu Bhadra, for welcoming and creating a theater-in-the-round for our poems, and Co-editor Indubala Kachhawa, for your helpfulness with this poem.

With thanks, this rose for you I leave, for any of you who have read, or at “the funeral for disappointment” grieved.

The third poem in the series will be titled “Cedars of Lebanon”.

The first poem of the series, “Morning Eilleen”, is linked below.

“May I Bow Low”, the poem I wrote preceding this series, is below.

Editorial Note: Paper Poetry is running a themed poetry series of four poems over a month. This is second on the theme, Mizpah which means a watchtower, look-out, and a deep emotional connect between people separated by death or distance.