When Mother was a young girl, <br />what would she have felt <br />to be shown how her life would turn out— <br /> <br />her husband and sons, <br />and how things went with the family, <br /> <br />later a grandchild dead at 13, <br />four surviving to bring in <br />still another generation? <br /> <br />When she was on the beach, say, <br />in Atlantic City in that picture from the'30s, <br />skin fair and fresh as apple flesh, <br />looking into the camera <br />like a comet at a sky <br />it's about to cross? <br /> <br />Could she have seen <br />the crone she is at 85, <br />Or leaving her beloved east coast <br />for a life in the midwest? <br /> <br />I don't think so. Nor <br />the dignity life has conferred upon her <br />through hard choices <br />and tears.<br /><br />Max Reif<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-at-the-beach-1939/
