Within her eyes she carries my history
But she can no longer summon the images.
The brown orbs that I sought as a child
And avoided as a teen
Look blankly at me now, uncertain.

In her wedding photograph,
Next to my stoic father,
She smiles, radiant,
Her eyes so warm and dark
That even now I find comfort in their gaze.

I see her in a rose-hued photo
Peering over a buxom infant.
Her pride and joy.
I see my mother there--
Not in the eyes of the old woman who now sits across from me.

Decades later, in another wedding photo,
Her hair is silver but the eyes are still bright.
She stands with her arm around her high school sweetheart.
Finally together, their eyes crinkle gaily
As they gaze into a friend’s camera, defying age.

When did her eyes begin to betray the fragility of her mind?
Standing with her granddaughters along the Mississippi two years ago,
she looks uncertain, confused.
She gazes off to the right, in search of something she cannot remember—
An elusive thought, a memory trapped inside an unforgiving mind.

Look at me, come back to me,
Let me see those eyes that could be arrogant
And ferocious in their love,
That taunted my youth as you ran down the Old Mill path, calling out
“See if you can catch me!”

I look but you are gone.