Letter to Mother

Are you still alive, my dear old one?

I'm still here. Just a word, a breath—a hello.

Let that quiet, wordless evening light

drift over your little house like a soft, steady glow.

They tell me you hide your worry, don't show it,

but you've grown so sad, missing me more than you say.

You keep walking down to the road, day after day,

in that old-fashioned, worn shawl you've worn for years.

And in the blue dusk, in the evening hush,

your mind keeps seeing the same dark shape again:

someone in a tavern brawl, a blade flashing,

a cold edge sliding deep into my heart.

It's nothing, darling. Just a heavy dream.

Just the kind of story the night likes to tell.

I'm not that bitter soul who'd vanish into the dark,

never sending a single word to you again.

I'm still the same. Still tender, still reaching out.

All I want is to leave this restless ache behind,

and walk back to our low and quiet home,

where the walls remember every step we ever took.

I'll come when the garden stretches its arms wide,

when our white orchard breathes spring into the air.

But please—don't wake me at dawn like you did before,

like you did eight years ago, when hope still had weight.

Don't stir what's long been dreamed and drifted away.

Don't touch the things that never came to be.

Too early loss and weariness already live in me—

they've settled like cold dust in every corner of my days.

And don't teach me how to pray. I'm not asking for that.

There's no going back to the way we used to be.

You're all the help I have, all the quiet I know,

the one light I can't name, but can't live without.

So put that worry down. Let it rest.

Don't grieve so hard, my dearest. I'm still here, somehow.

Don't walk so often down that lonely road,

under the cold sky, in that old, worn-out shawl.