Mother

Your love was like moonlight turning harsh things to beauty, so that little wry souls reflecting each other obliquely as in cracked mirrors... beheld in your luminous spirit their own reflection, transfigured as in a shining stream, and loved you for what they are not.

You are less an image in my mind than a luster I see you in gleams pale as star-light on a gray wall... evanescent as the reflection of a white swan shimmering in broken water.