My Mother’s Yahrzeit – a poem by Susan Zimmerman

My Mother’s Yahrzeit

At sundown, I light the candle.
If I miss sundown, 
I light it when I remember.

Now she companions me
through the house
till I go to bed.

When I wake in the night, the candle
still shimmers in shadow,
throws a warm halo in the dark.

In the morning it welcomes me,
as if her presence lingered 
from her night’s wandering.

Later, I’m not looking, 
I’ve forgotten—
the flame goes out.

Last year when it went out, I lit another.
Not traditional, but neither was my mother.
I needed more time. I needed more light.

 

Susan Zimmerman’s chapbook, Nothing is Lost, was published by Caitlin Press in 1980. Her poems have more recently appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, Gyroscope Review, The Maynard, and SWWIM Every Day. A poem of hers is also included in the new anthology The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy, edited by James Crews.