REMEMBERING ANNA: PICTURES AND POEMS

My older sister Anna Buttaci Coppola was born September 08, 1936 and passed away of uterine cancer on October 22, 1999. Needless to say, I miss her everyday. What keeps me from the snares of constant sorrow is my belief that she is in Heaven, her reward for loving God and serving Him all her life.

These poems and pictures celebrate her life. 

First Holy Communion: 1943

I WILL REMEMBER 

I will remember you each day

In all my prayers and words I say.

Anna, how could I forget you

and all the happy times we knew?

It hurts to know you could not stay.

Those childhood years we filled with play,

The faith you had each time you prayed

And how my own faith you renewed.

  I will remember!

The time flew by-- too fast away!

And left our lives in disarray.

This much for certain will be true;

This much I swear in life I'll do:

    I will remember!

© 1999 Salvatore Buttaci

 Sal, Anna, and Joanie: Brooklyn 1948

DREAMING OF ANNA

I dreamed of you last night.

You appeared to me, young

again, healthy, and like when 

I'd tell funny jokes in the old days,

you were laughing uncontrollably.

That same laugh I heard throughout the dream; 

that laugh I remember most of 

all about you. Then I awoke

and tried so hard to hold onto 

the dream, but it flew away like

a bird homing towards its morning sky.

Dear sister, I can look up and

know you're safe up there

cradled by the night stars, my angel

walking freely  in the day clouds,

sharing laughter with the universe.

© 2000 Salvatore Buttaci

 Anna and Godmother Jennie Coppola: 1948

ANOTHER  DAY

This morning again

I remembered you

and that same old 

something in my heart

grew weary of our separation.

It was the morning air,

the autumn breeze brushing

behind me like a passing soul

with your walk, your presence:

another day empty of you.

I remembered you 

again this morning

and your voice clear 

as rain said, brother, 

how can love ever die?

I remembered you,

prompted by this sigh,

this trembling, these tears

clouding these eyes--

I say to wherever you are

No way can love die!

then I lighten the weight

that pulls me down to sorrow

by lifting my head and smiling. 

I remember the two of us in 

a long-ago October free of grief 

and parting.  What of that day 

have I forgotten?

Which of us said what

to double us over in laughter?

© 2001 Salvatore Buttaci

 Anna and husband Ciro: 1957

TO MY SISTER ANNA

in my early years

you took me under your wing

and taught me how to read

in my later years

you helped me spread my wings

and showed me how to hope

two years ago

you lay in a white nest

small, thin, featherless

before you tumbled skyward

on your last day

you said how much you loved me

    

© 2001 Salvatore Buttaci

 Mama and Anna at a picnic: 1995

THIS WATER THAT’S HOLY

These are the tears

Wrung from a body

Stretched on the rack

Of a torturous disease.

I saved these tears

This water that’s holy

That flowed from the eyes

Of my sister, a saint.

             

© 2008 Salvatore Buttaci

 Anna's seven children: Michael, Julie, Josephine, Louisa, Grace, 

 Anna Marie and Sal: 2014

REMEMBERING ANNA

My dear sister, gone from eyes yet weeping 

in this cruel decade of separation, 

still you visit my gray sleep and slay

demons with your beatific smile. 

In these slumber visitations, 

pretending sorrow never pierced my heart, 

I delight in your voice again,

clear as the memory of our 

joyful yesterdays. In sleep country, 

dying is an empty threat that leads nowhere. 

Fearlessly we two souls sit here

recalling those happy years together, 

how love is eternal––God’s sweet breath!––

Sister and brother hands clasp as one.

                

© 2008 Salvatore Buttaci

Salvatore Buttaci is the author of Flashing My Shorts and 200 Shorts, two short-short story collections published by All Things That Matter Press and available at Amazon.com. He lives in West Virginia with his wife and love of his life, Sharon.