TWO TREES AND A RIVER

I buried my mother today.

For the second time. 

I scattered her ashes 

as a trinity, 

in three different places 

in Ireland—the land 

of her mother's mother, 

in Ennis, 

in County Clare.

I smuggled her in 

as electrolytes, in small 

LMNT packages 

to avoid Customs

from confusing her 

with contraband.

My mother would have chuckled 

at being mistaken for minerals 

that aid in the body’s balance, 

health and flow, 

as potassium, sodium 

and magnesium.

From these tiny parcels 

I laid her down 

at the base of two trees

and into a river.

The trees were on the grounds 

of two churches, 

Catholic and Anglican. 

One tree, a cypress, 

represented, respectively,

my mother’s (converted) faith

and the other, a yew,

the faith 

of her grandmother.

The river, running 

through the town, 

also took my mother 

willingly, nonchalantly. 

The Fergus flows into the Shannon 

and the Shannon into the Atlantic. 

I imagine my mother, already

in the Pacific from her first burial

near the Golden Gate Bridge, 

meeting up with herself 

off the coast of Cape Horn, 

having wound her way 

from the wild eastern waters,

and think now of James Joyce

and his idea of recirculation.

My mother is recirculating. 

She is a riverrun. 

She is in the branches of trees,

in the arms of ancients,

and is an author

of every living thing. 

Today, as her offspring,

I finish her ending 

by bringing her back 

to her beginning, where 

her essence will reach 

into the air of sky

and mix with the salt 

of the two great seas. 

Her light and electricity, 

her swerve and bend, 

never forgotten, will forever 

nurture as Nature. 

She will always be Mother, 

verdant and flowing, 

of the Earth and Evergreen.