Visit From A Peacock

Dear Mummy lay dying in the jungle
amidst fronds, primordials,
birds of paradise in robes
of orange and red, flowering
jasmine, hibiscus, tuberose,
the waving leaves of banana trees.

Dear Mummy lay dying not far
from my brother, but in her own space.
On the morn of her death, I tried
to feed her, but she swallowed
only a spoon of applesauce.

A peacock slept outside her room,
always on the same branch
of the same tree. That morn,
he strode across her threshold spreading 

feathers of indigo and turquoise.
Circling, he screeched his song
and was gone.

When the hospice nurse arrived,
she bathed Mummy; then sweeping
her back and forth in the sheets,
alerted me that her last breaths
were drawing near.

I perched on the bed, holding Mummy.
At that indelible moment,
my brother appeared, grief wrinkled
onto his face.

For all the fury of her life,
Mummy left with radiance.
"Goodbye my sweetheart, my friend,"
I said. The peacock had also
managed to say his goodbye.