
Mum had a way/of teaching kindness by example/we stood on city buses for any aged passengers/said please and a name/corrected sharply/with a look/words if necessary/she’s the cat’s mother/oh/that meant/use her name/ final life lessons were brave/extravagant lashings of love/and Irish humor/ya wanna hear a joke/as she/um Mum/lay propped up in her bed still wielding her needles and yarn/gifts still meant to be given/and late into the long nights she/um Mum/studied the joke books she/um Mum/kept at hand/to soften our days/knowing her work/done well/was almost done