St. Patrick’s Day Eve

I know I’m a little late with this post, but it’s still March, and the weather is blustery and unpredictable, and the river is high. Spring is on the eve of bursting forth, and the cycle of life flows and eddies and dances on. I wrote this ten years ago for my parents, now gone…

St. Patrick’s Day Eve, Cincinnati

I jog up three blocks of steps
to the top of Prospect Hill and turn 
for a triumphant view of the 
city as I catch my breath, 
relish the burn in my thighs. 
Gazing down the Ohio, the swollen hips
of her S-curve shimmer quicksilver
in the slanting light, belying the mud
and debris of the spring flood. 
A stiff, warm breeze kicks up
winter salt and sand against my shins. 
I think of my parents, upwind, in Missouri— 
my mother sitting on the porch, worrying 
her coffee and her shawl, inching 
her wheelchair by degrees to stay in the sun. 
Did the air in my lungs caress her cheek 
and lift the strands she is growing 
long “one more time”? Do I smell 
the loam in the bins we cleared 
and turned for my father last week? 
I wonder if he will have the strength 
to plant potatoes tomorrow, 
while my mother sits on the porch, 
watching and worrying and 
chasing the sun.

©Elizabeth Mariner, 2016