Nocturne

Nocturne

BY LOUISE GLÜCK


Mother died last night,

Mother who never dies.


Winter was in the air,

many months away

but in the air nevertheless.


It was the tenth of May.

Hyacinth and apple blossom

bloomed in the back garden.


We could hear

Maria singing songs from Czechoslovakia —


How alone I am —

songs of that kind.



How alone I am,

no mother, no father —

my brain seems so empty without them.



Aromas drifted out of the earth;

the dishes were in the sink,

rinsed but not stacked.


Under the full moon

Maria was folding the washing;

the stiff  sheets became

dry white rectangles of  moonlight.

How alone I am, but in music

my desolation is my rejoicing.


It was the tenth of May

as it had been the ninth, the eighth.


Mother slept in her bed,

her arms outstretched, her head

balanced between them.