This basil my mother has nurtured into a bush
seems proof that with good soil
and warmth and attention,
a seedling might grow
into something astonishing.
But come first frost,
the basil will blacken and die.
How then to explain my mother,
weakened, beleaguered,
frosted and thriving.
Vulnerable, she has never been more powerful.
Sapped, her beauty shines.
She has been nurtured by a love so great
it fuels her from within,
regardless the weather.
Love is stored in her
not like the memory of sun,
but like the sun itself still present—
something generous, unstinting,
a gravity of praise, a star of wonder,
a vigorous blessing, the legacy of faith.