Not the matter of morbidity (matter does matter there!)
But of humanity pushing inhumanity on the Other
We die a little; we die more when we loved the "other" before
Avarice, Impatience, Unkindness, Arrogance ... all that ego
Kills word by word, thought by thought; slashes and red gashes echo
(The Potter's love for clay and art; we pretend we do not care)
We die to Spirit every day with unkind bombs ... word daggers we say
I tried to live this life...
But I feel so empty…
The silence is beating me down...
As low as the bed of the sea…
---
I can’t sear and seal...
The bad memories I left behind...
I tried to ignore, breathe with it...
But it keeps on drowning me...
---
If I could only turn back the time...
I would go sooner than my innocence...
I’ll fix the scattered pieces of my being...
And find someone to be with as I live..
---
Someone who will love and hold me...
Comfort me when I’m down...
Who will be my guiding light...
On my boring time…
---
Because every time I’m alone...
I feel the unfilled part of my life...
And I feel like I’m dying...
Dying a million times and more…
Avoid becoming concrete.
Death encroaching
freezes great hearts.
Illuminate joy.
Kindle love.
Magnify!
Never orally
practice quaint
rhetoric. Speak truths.
usurp violent waters.
X-ray your zenith.
She had a stroke six weeks before
and slept downstairs
'So they could keep an eye on her
- my lovely grandmother, Elizabeth.
I would whisper
'Granny, are you alright?'
and be shushed out of the room.
On December 12th, 1961
she was dying. They knelt around the bed
and said the Rosary.
May and Lizzie, their husbands and children,
cousins and neighbours, droning their prayers.
As she struggled to breathe: loud then slow and slowing,
the candle flickered shadows on the wall.
Sad faces, some old and lined, anticipating
the arrival of the Monsignor - to give her Unction.
They hoped that she would live until he arrived.
'She had a good life - a long life' they said
'Eighty-Seven years'.
'But some people live to be a hundred!'
my thirteen year old self shouted back -
My mother and the nurse laid her out
on her big mahogany bed.
'The ritual gave me comfort'
Mam said later -
Best linens, starched and waiting
for this time - her habit - a dress especially made for death
Beads entwined in her dear fingers.
These preparations a ceremony of love and care
I wouldn't, couldn't look at her
They did -
I hated them for that.