Mary Frederick Ahearn
Pottstown, Pennsylvania, USA

1917 – 2017

Today would be her 100th birthday, this April Pennsylvania day. Warm, hazy-blue sky, birdsong and redbuds ready to flower. The fields are greening and some are patched with purple deadnettle and wild blue grape hyacinths. Daffodils and tulips in rows, freshly filled bird baths—things she loved. Things she knew. Things she lost.

some days
memory wins
a mourning dove's dream

I would have made her an orange cake, and centered it just so on grandmother's turquoise bordered plate. As I used to do.

things
she didn't say
once upon a time