My mother would have loved the Tower Champlain,
lounging on her terrace─
never without “putting on her face” ─
soaking up the sun, gazing at the ocean
with a little smile of satisfaction
to live in such a beautiful place.
My mother would have loved the Tower Champlain.
Sometimes she would play the piano
and sing her version
of “Fly Me to the Moon.”
Her neighbors would stop and listen
to hear the exquisite yearning
in that song.
My mother would have loved the Tower Champlain.
In the evenings on her terrace
she would have a drink of wine,
whoosh it around in her glass
like memories, blurred photographs
of all the stories of her lives.
Her laugh would carry
every story down.
My mother would have loved the Tower Champlain
till one day it was gone
and she was gone,
workmen searching for her bones
amidst the rubble and the ruins
of other mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,
aunts and uncles, cousins, lovers, friends.
My mother would have loved the Tower Champlain.
I join the loved ones weeping
at the edge of towers crumbling
in Florida, Gaza, Lebanon─
disaster by neglect or bombs.
In a world where our towering humanity
counts for nothing
I reach out and hold all of them in my arms.