dirge ovenbird He was twelve when cancer came for his mother. He was old enough to understand the word (death) but not old enough to believe in it. He refused to see his mother as she lay dying. She asked for him day after day but he could not make his body enter the room (the last room, the room that his mother would never leave). He retreated to the dark of the basement with a guitar he could barely play. He strummed a few chords and let grief sing through him. The song was only this: “please don’t go…please don’t go…please don’t go.” All other words were hidden inside this repeated wish, this desperate prayer. The song vibrating in his chest let him stand, it let him walk into the room that held his mother, it let him move to her bedside so she could touch his face. And then she did go. Having held the hands of her youngest son, she left. He grew to adulthood with the limp wet petals of his song clinging to his ribs and he never tried to sing again. Not even once. 251205 what's it to you? who go blather from