Full of joy and laughter and love
My parents gave me few chores
No ultimatums
I never was grounded
Or punished
I learned to criticize myself for every flaw
And correct others creating boundaries
Where I had none.
My mother was a musician
A concert harpist who played in four symphonies
Of south Louisiana
And weddings on most weekends
She played nearly 10,000 weddings in 40 years
Of weekends at noon and 2 and 6 and 7.
All harpists play weddings
Because you get the centerpiece
Of sculpture
With the sound of angels
Blessing your nuptials
As if god herself stood on your altar
Singing her praise.
I fell asleep every night to her practice
The repetition of a phrase
Or if I were lucky
An entire song
For hours
As I lay in the next room
Is why I fall asleep at the symphony
You see I have an excuse
My mother was an artist
And painted delicate angel figurines
For each pew of the church holding the ribbons
That would guard the center aisle
As I walked in to marry a man in 1995
When I got engaged,
My mother offered one rule
The first in my whole life
One thing she would never forgive
I would be dead to her
Never hear her laugh again
Never cry in her arms
One prohibition I should never break:
Do not have Pachelbel’s canon played at your wedding.