Reversal

the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on...
--Khalil Gibran

My mother quotes Gibran.  She sends her love
the only way she knows, the way a lark
trills, as if compelled to sing above
the brooding clouds, the cluttered, growling dark.

She throws some words against the wall, a cell
a dozen layers thick with paint and grief;
my words bounce back, become a copper bell
wringing in some new bright day’s relief.

Her love is absolute.  The universe
expands a little to contain the shock
it registers.  And continents reverse
their shame-ward course.  The moon sinks in its track.

This isn’t what I mean.  I meant to say
that I was glad she wrote to me today.