Between mother and child there is a bond,
intangible but intended for permanence,
which all the years of growing up
and out and away may thin and stretch,
but never sever,
as permission is given for child to grow up
and mother to grow old and less needed.
Where love is, the bond brings joy
at every reunion, and distress at every parting.
Death, then, is a cruel occurrence,
a disruption of an essential system
in the human heart.

And there is no consolation
and can be no consolation

That mental placement,
the automatic locator system in a mother's brain,
whereby at any moment she numbers all her children
and knows where each is
cannot be turned off,
and continues the search
long after the body has been found
and always returns to 
the wound that was his location in her mind.