Each day that I write the poem
which swells inside of me
is a day of diminished pain.
Mornings fill with sounds
of mockingbirds scolding
each stray who slinks home
in the hour before dawn.
Even during downpours
messages are exchanged.

I am thereby assured
that my own scribbled lines
will make no ghost wary
since whatever condemns or extols
is another leaf whirled
from the Everlasting Tree
whose roots are entangled
in my mother’s hair,
my father’s loosened tongue.

Maxine Cassin
from her book The Other Side of Sleep
Portals Press, 1995

Used with permission of the poet’s estate.