It Was Only Yesterday Poem by Lynn W. Petty

In Memory of our Mother, Anne Reina

I remember her lying there, my Mother,
In her convalescent bed.
She lay in the fetal position like an unborn child
Floating in the waters of the womb;
Afraid Of the unknown, knowing the inevitable
Could not be stayed.

How courageous, yet childlike she was,
Unable to care for herself, fearful of the dark,
Dreading that mysterious moment when she would walk alone
On the solemn, silent shore of a spiritual sea.
Her will, her grace, her worth delaminated like peeled veneer,
Exposing the calamity of age;
Her beauty defoliating by sheaths before her eyes,
Not recognizing the person in the mirror as herself;
The encroaching time, having left her without a link to the future,
Only a past; her baptism in the stream of life's twilight,
Held within the somnolent embrace of the minister of death.

She had said she knew it would come someday, but not so soon.
"Where has time delivered me? " she asked.
"It was only yesterday, I was a little girl."