Aunt Jeanne
By: Jan Gero


French pastel candies in her hand
offered to much younger beauties,
we watch her cashmere pink face
turn boldly toward the light.

At dinner she serves a tureen
of wild salmon glowing
on her table strewn with falcon feathers,
and kind candlelight collected as a girl.

It is the eagle's piercing truth -
her Cherokee blood will fade into the earth,
as Mother Nature folds her into the womb
nourishing her as the first baby,
emerging each spring, laughing,
with the daffodils she loves.

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