My Sufi guide and I
are meeting on Zoom.
She welcomes me with a home-run smile
and a “Hi” laced with joy.
“Read me one of your poems,”
she says, eyes glistening.
When I finish, she exclaims,
“That’s wonderful. You’re doing holy work.”
She taught me to typeset my poems by hand,
then published them in a beautiful letterpress book,
seeing me with God’s eyes.
“How are you feeling about the surgery?”
I ask about her six-hour operation next week.
A hint of anxiety flits over her angular face.
“I’ve asked my son to be with me in the hospital.
I’ve been doing practices to calm myself,
but I still feel a little nervous,”
she confesses, willing to be vulnerable.
“Many of us will be praying for you,”
I tell her, referring to all the people who love her,
a fountain of light illuminating my life
and so many others,
the mother I might have had.
Ralph Dranow works as an editor and poetry guide. His most recent book is At Work on the Garments of Refuge, poems of his and his late friend Daniel Marlin. He lives in Oakland, California with his family.