A Tribute to My Mother

     For Mother's Day this Sunday, I offer this tribute to my mother:

"There Are No Ideas But in Things" (William Carlos Williams)

What is the idea behind this flat gray rock
just bigger than the palm of my hand
a slightly elongated circle as smooth as though sanded
with edges so round they could have been shaped by a rasp?
A rock my mother picked up as we wandered the Oregon beach
that long-ago summer when she came to visit
though she disapproved of my hippy lifestyle
and never stopped asking when I was coming back to Georgia.
Later she picked up the paintbrush she always had with her
and painted on the rock's smooth flat surface
a bouquet of bright yellow buttercups and light blue gilia.
Under the flowers, following the curve of the rock,
carefully and clearly painted in white on that dark gray stone:
"Oregon June '81" and her artist's signature.
I've kept this rock for 41 years 
occasionally holding its smooth weight in my hand
admiring again its painted flowers.
Time, far from causing them to fade,
has made more clear the idea of this painted rock
the same idea as the note she sometimes left in my school lunch:
"I love you."
Simply that.

Mom and Dad, 2009, in front of a mural she painted