Lou J. Klaiber

A BED OF SACRED CHERRYWOOD

I returned on foot
and walking slowly
up the long road
past the cemetery stones
and houses by the road.

People silent
watching!
They thought me dead… for sure,
and I was marching home.

Everything I owned was gone.
Sold!
My car so old,
my guns,
… my dreams.

Only my Mother believed in me.
… her savings placed in a bed of
satin smooth red cherrywood,
untouched…and silent.

For me alone,
This one thing…
her medicine prayer
that I would die when very old…
and in that bed of cherrywood.

I settled all accounts with men
… who sold me out
and worshipped things…
Who treated her unkindly.

I kept the warrior within my heart,
and returned the child my Mother loved.

She and I
yet alive, and speaking
eye to eye
and always
in the way of Mothers and Sons!

(Stolen dreams are nothing
Love is everything)

So I sleep
with my wife
in that cherrywood bed…
…… shall die in it,
……… someday.