My mom, Raynette Forister Eitel, passed away in September of 2022, age 85, drifting away into dementia. It was tragic to watch this woman who loved words, who was a poet, fade away into wordlessness after a lifetime of crafting poetry.
To honor her, I’m sharing some of her poems.
To read more of her poems, keep coming back here.
From Birds
by Raynette Eitel
Each morning birds awakened her
With poems.
Through her dreams she heard
Soft cooing of doves,
Thrum of hummingbird wings,
And robins singing of spring.
Once a hawk swooped down,
His mighty beak
Too near her eyes,
His shriek terrible to bear.
She bolted upright in bed,
Heart pounding.
Sparrows twittered poems
In syncopation
With rhythmic sounds
Of mockingbirds,
Giving her snatches of verse
Stolen from another place.
But when she heard the meadowlark
Singing full voice,
Heralding dawn in full chorus,
She knew it was time to arise
And write it all down.
Writing Rhetorically 