Promise

Promise
by Vina Bermudez Mogg

I bought a Meyer lemon tree
last Mother’s day
in memory of my mother.

Meyer lemons favor
a taste sweeter than the ordinary.

I placed this petite seedling
into a clay pot.
A clay pot like the one
she placed geraniums
in the spring.

This tree
carried one lone fruit
into the summer
yellowed leaves
into the fall
withered limbs
into the winter.

I feared my memories of her
would crumble
like these limbs
like her own memory
buried
beneath the brambles
of Alzheimer’s.

Sun warms the darkened
soil of grief.
From the pot of clay
not one, not two, but twelve blooms emerge!
Tender sprigs bend
toward light.

Hope flowers.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:17

Vina Bermudez Mogg is restoring life through words on paper, paint on canvas and reclaimed wood in a century old cottage by the Puget Sound. Numerous stories about empty nesting, motherhood, Alzheimer’s and caregiving, and how it all relates to restoring a 1926 abode can be found on her website, vinabermudezmogg.com.

She has been published in an anthology of essays, The Wonder Years: 40 Women Over 40 on Aging, Faith, Beauty, and Strength, by Leslie Leyland Fields, Ruminate Magazine, and a variety of sites including thewritelaunch.com, Grand Magazine, redbudwritersguild.com, and is a creative editor for mudroomblog.com.

Vina’s loves are her husband and four children and three daughters-in-law, music, paddle boarding, and her cat, Bear.