I’m twenty one and sitting across a fortune teller

She meticulously studies my palms

Seeing a taxing journey ahead, she holds my hands with compassion

I come to as I recognize my own mother sitting across from me

She repeats her future for me 

“I have Alzheimers”

I stare at the sharp uphill mountain appearing before me

It shows the solitary climb I am forced now to take

Time becomes my sworn enemy

The unmerciful master my mother and I find ourselves enslaved to

Week after week he infuses her with confusion

M o n t h after m o n t h he extracts his payment of memories

Year  after  year he devours her independence

I make my daily visit to Hope’s aviary and despair overtakes me

I’ve discovered Time has clipped her wings and stolen her song

I hold my mother as she falls like sand through my fingers

The sacred connection formed in the womb is rapidly being severed 

Her eyes scan the room searching for me as I stand in front of her

The name she bore me no longer passes her lips

I call to her but my mother no longer answers 

Her empty vessel responds with words I can’t comprehend

I’m enraged with Time for I see she has no good days left

At twenty seven I offer to trade my happiness for my mother’s peace

Time hearing my bargain performs his only merciful act

He manumits her earthly tether and her soul departs

Her lifeless body floats on a raft of cypress in the Chattahoochee river

I release a fiery arrow giving her a warrior’s funeral

Turning from her I find myself at the bottom of a deep pit

I will myself to crawl through grief’s viscid tar up to the land of the living

For the first time in years I find myself content as I inch forward

I sense Hope’s song is released and singing to me

For I hear my mom saying my name again and it rings like bells