For Mimi with love

I was very surprised and moved to tears when Mrs. Maureen shared this memory, i looked by my side at the flower bouquet i got for her birthday, right beside her photo and paintings and got really sad that for some reason nobody remembered her birthday that year. It broke my heart to believe that everybody forgot such a special day while she was still around. I tend to forget that her birthday is the same day he passed away, and i tought to myself maybe i should have a photo of him beside her as well. I think she would like it. She will always have flowers around here, specially on important days, like today.

"WILD IRISES

—for Mimi Fariña

April 30, 1945-July 20, 2001

Sweet Mimi. I once brought

her a childish bouquet of wild irises

plucked from beneath the cypress

in our lower garden, not knowing

it was her birthday—she was moved to tears,

saying she thought everyone had forgotten.

I was embarrassed, but also pleased

knowing that sense of diminishment

and loss when a birthday goes unnoted.

A small spur-of the-moment gesture

became something much larger.

Her eyes welled as she set those irises

by the photo of her long-dead husband.

Whenever I see wild irises I think of her.

I like to think she returns to us each spring,

a white dove circling the long-armed ridges

and slopes where Mt. Tamalpais sings."

From Mrs. Maureen Huler