In a pre-sleep vision, hypnagogic, as might... but closed lids screened upon my pillowed sight,
I saw again my dead mother in all her regalia, shawls and spreads, Arts and Crafts, ancient Egypt meeting Pre-Raphaelite, like a bank of flowers propped up on pillows,
smiled at me her wise humor, nodded her white head, a blackthorn in spring wind, then lay back, dead,
the bed, a flower-bed; earth colors faded to earth, the mounded contour of her head flattening simply to a brown ground.
...............
My mother died at dawn last autumn, one of my sisters in attendance. I was staying down the road a ways so went to see her after I got the text of the event, when I could, to pay respects, so saw her lying in... as it were. This 'vision' like watching a film clip with eyes closed, is therefore obviously built on my past experience.
This poem is in free verse.
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