MOTHER
The day my mother died
the savanna was silent.
Birds did not fly
in great pink flocks
across the wild sky.
Buffaloes and elephants
did not come to drink
at the watering hole,
and the yellow lioness
under the thorn trees
didn’t roar to the wind.
Masai warriors huddled
inside their mud huts,
scared of the emptiness
the world had become
inside my shattered heart.
Leonel F. Valle, 68, of Roanoke, was born in Havana,Cuba, in 1942 and became a U. S. citizen on July 4, 1976 in Miami, Florida. He is a prolific writer who also likes to fish and paint. Although he has won many awards for poetry and fiction writing in Virginia and Florida, he is making his premiere appearance in the Senior Poets Laureate circle this year. His sign is Cancer.