Suddenly the world has changed and the sound
     of your mother’s voice is gone.
Suddenly people remark how mature you have
      become, but you are still only
a child. At a family dinner surrounded by cousins
      who have parents and siblings
you are praised for your beautiful new dress
      with its white pleats and dark top,
but you carry an absence that no one sees, the wounds
      that strike us all with their own
language and that lives in our hearts. Your mother
      should be sitting in the audience
at your dance recital, listening to your stories
      with the understanding that
entwined you. But you will always carry her ways
      that will become part of you,
the way she saw life in a flower rising from the earth,
      in a blade of grass, with the wisdom
of the Native Americans, the summoning of love,
      the invisible glow of her being.