Mother

When I was young and innocent,
my mother sang a song.
I think perhaps it had to do with birds.
I can’t recall just how it went,
though I used to sing along.
I wish I could remember all the words.

It had a haunting melody,
that much I do recall.
One of loss and sadness, fear and pain.
She sang this lovely rhapsody
whenever rain would fall—
she always seemed her saddest in the rain.

My mother found protection in
the bottom of a glass.
She never seemed to know just when to stop.
She'd sit there with a twisted grin
and watch the hours pass,
and with each drink I felt my spirit drop.

Now she’s been dead for fifteen years,
and what a way to go—
suicide assisted by a train.
I must have shed ten thousand tears,
and more because I know
that when she died, it happened in the rain.