Tag: dying

poetry

tragic

Posted on

This poem was written in response to this comic, which deeply saddened one of our sons. I actually reached out to the artist to see if she might have anything comforting to communicate to him, but I have not received a response. The article explains that she drew the comic to encourage drivers to slow down for ducklings. Our kids found it by Googling “duck comic.”

tragic

all the departing souls saying
I’m so sorry
all the dying pleading
Can you say goodbye to me?

our sweet son sees a comic
of a ghost duckling
taking leave of his mama
and knows the devastating truth of it –
they’ll never know each other again

we are not the faithful it is written type
no, we’re bound to hang on to breath
and the dear flawed souls around us
with our heels dug in
teeth gritted
not taking any chances on some future homecoming
or even any afterlife

I want to shake that artist
until her own teeth rattle
and demand
What were you thinking?
There’s enough real tragedy in sight
without making him mourn
your damned duck
or his mother.
Why make his world any more sad
than tomorrow demands?

poetry

our shared grief

Posted on

our shared grief

in this lonely time of loss
each of us locked away
in our own sorrow
the future a grey haze
uncertainty dusting everything
we do or say like fine ash
the fear of dying alone
(our death or a beloved’s)
with no hand to hold
no last pressure between worlds
the one consolation is
our shared grief –
that you know a bit
of what I must say no to
without me opening my lips
for maybe the only time
our hearts share this unsaid knowing
that we would each gladly
take this away from the other

I want to splash warm red
and the smell of cinnamon
into your scene
let you remember
how spontaneous laughter feels
light the way forward for you
at least a few steps

poetry

Bill’s Lorica

Posted on

While my dad was dying I felt I needed the strength of a lorica to protect me emotionally. I intended to write it before I went to see him in the hospital in Minnesota, but somehow I didn’t get to it. On the flight home, I started to write a lorica, but it ended up being for him, not me. I wrote one draft and started copying out a second, and then we were on the ground. I put it aside and rediscovered it today. St. Patrick used his lorica to transform into a deer to avoid attack.

Bill’s Lorica

in the sparkling northwoods blue-green
today we gather
warmth of the longtime sun
to make a blanket for your bones
thick purple-brown twining grape vines
to knit a secret room of shade
a closed space without fear
to lie a long body down
to let go the burden of being upright

here in the crushed green
of fiddlehead and jewelweed
trilliums silently go crimson
binding our carmine blood
and this bit of wood

in the still pulpit, jack sits,
a silent preacher with nothing left to judge
only to witness you rest
accepting hard scars that will turn to moss
your angular bones to be rounded with time

we bring the pull of purple magnetite
the charged ions/counterbalance
positive/negative canceled/reconciled

we gather the echo in the steep shale walls
leaves written with pressure in time’s patient book
shut now

we call on the grosbeak’s brilliant rose-petal stained breast
his love sung not said

we call upon the restless waves
smoothing the past
readying the sunset canvas
curving to calm in a still quiet bay

and up here in the buoyant cumulus fields
today we weave all these ragged fragments together
a last quilt of protection
you pull to your chin

then you split down the middle
and turn to deer
as the jester’s gavel drops
on the hours of needing
to be more

poetry

into the earth

Posted on

into the earth

today I bury
Mary & Will’s son
Patrick’s brother
my father

back to the earth
I give
the man who called me Hon
whose chest rumbled
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
in my ear every year

I bury snores that shook the house
and the click of the La-Z-Boy footrest
snapping into place

into the open ground
I put the smell of Scotch
and the crack of ice
the scent of Marlboros
and aftershave

I bury our single game of backgammon
and our many King’s Quests

here in the loam
I place Sundays
of Canadian bacon and eggs
glass Pepsi bottles
and the crossword

I bury a rough cheek
and a black fur fedora
with a jaunty red feather
old galoshes and new Buicks

under the turf
among the roots
I lower
our disappointment
yours and mine
at being who we are

today my heart heaps
soothing Walnut Creek clay
to bury the weight of trying
to ask the right questions

now I put the memory
of holding your hand
trying to undo loneliness
deep into the soil

today I bury
Ma’s grandson
Bill
my only Dad

poetry

becoming a body

Posted on

becoming a body

everything slows
air
sound
time
that warm heart squeezes
with less gusto
less interested in hanging on
the lungs creak open
a smaller crack
they’re coming to rest
like a pendulum becomes plumb
eyes turn inward
focused on re-viewing not seeing
limbs move their last
they didn’t know
which would be their final stair
parting wave
goodbye kiss
the ocean pulse that runs from tip to toe
weakens
ebbs
the blue line traces
shallower crests and troughs
the electrical buzz
that hummed distractingly
in the background every moment
starts to crackle with static
sputter
flicker
like the lights in the windstorm
of a deep snow day
the circle narrows
who knows you well enough
to still see you now?
and now?

we are all going
from poor souls
to untethered bodies
mostly living less each day
but sometimes we waken
from life’s lull
to moonglow through pine boughs
and breathe some life back in
to keep our spirits stitched to our hearts
for another long midsummer day