Frozen in Time

One faded photograph

Your smile, frozen in time

All I have left

Of you, the faintest trace

Mother clasps daughter dear

The scent of love and sweetness

oak’s bare branches glimmer

Peace now past tense

What might have been

To be held in your embrace

Of loss’s portrait

Memories haunt

This poem is for all the daughters who ache with the loss of their mothers—those who cling to memories as they long for one more day together. It is an attempt to capture the bittersweet pain of remembrance and the love that endures even after a guiding hand is lost. Though we may never meet, know that you are held in the heart’s company of all who understand the depths of such absence.