Inaudible

By Betsy Sholl

My mother, who by the end could barely see,
loved yellow, last color to leave the blind.
Sunlight on daffodils astonished her,
those bright trumpets, little brass mariachis,
as if she sensed their inaudible fanfares —

unheard, like the angel in Wings of Desire
Peter Falk can’t hear or see, but talks to
as he leans at a coffee stand, feels him
yearning for a body, for earth, bleak
as it is in gray thick–walled East Berlin.

As if called to welcome the angel, Falk
praises the taste of coffee, the feel of cold
hands rubbed together in this world of touch
and gravity, where even angels will learn
astonishment. And did I really hear Falk

whisper as he walked past wrecked buildings,
“I wish you were here, Grandma” —
meaning, despite ruin, to be alive is good?
And so my grandchildren flock to mind,
as if they too are creatures come to earth

to be amazed by sparrows, train tracks, bare trees
lit by the sweet tarnish of moonlight. Will they
learn to touch and be touched, let hurt open
a bigger world they don’t yet know they seek? —
as I didn’t know last night on my knees

searching for a dropped pearl earring,
that I would find instead a slip of paper
in my mother’s trail, loopy, backhand slant,
the letters big so she could see them.
My dears, I love you. Years after her death.