My mother died when she was fifty-two and I was twenty-six, right as we were really beginning to understand each other as adults–and friends. Since her death, I’ve discovered that though a person may die, the relationship continues. I learned my love of nature from Ma, and sometimes when I see something she would have loved–the first bumblebee of spring–I hear her voice in my head. For the moment she is with me. 

Rose Strode is a poet, essayist, rehabilitator of overgrown gardens, and naturalist. When not writing or helping others with their writing she wanders around the woods of New England with her dog. Read her work in New Ohio Review, Terrain.org, The Gettysburg Review, and The Broadsided Review.

W: http://rosestrode.com