[This picture is actually my mom in 1955. This was written before she passed away in 2019. – Owen]
I do not know which is further
The seventeen hundred miles to see my mom
Or the sixty years since this photo was taken
Each needs the aid of human technology to be crossed:
Plane rides today, for my wife and me
Or this photo, snapped by my dad in Japan
And loaded by my brother-in-law onto the Internet
There, my mom, but twenty-four years old
Is sitting across the world, in Japan
Today, my mom is eighty-four years old
With Parkinson’s, heart troubles, macular degeneration
Recently moved into an Assisted Living facility
The stylish young woman of the photo
Now, having seen so many lives,
And dreamed so many dreams,
Still does —
This is my mom
Who I have always known
And who I do not know
As the farthest distances to travel
Are still those
Between two people
Trying to really
Communicate
(“To See My Mom” – 3-3-2015)
