Our Loss (Leavetakings II)

 

She was surrounded by those who love her

Her life stretched behind her like a red carpet

Leading onwards and upwards

It could have been much longer

But it got into her bones

It stole into her lungs

And robbed us of her

She was gone but not into the dark

She had left the shadowland

To live in fields of light and warmth unknown

Leaving us darkbound, black clad grievers

To ponder mourning

I know

And he knew

Grandson

And son

“How did you mourn her?”

Someone so good, so pure

Yet so aware that she was not

Aware of the stained rags she wore

Yet still smiling upwards into the face of heaven

How do you mourn her?

When she is somewhere better

And you are left alone?

I don’t know how

I cried at the celebration of her life

That euphemism stuck to my tongue

Like the hot wax of the candles burning by her coffin

I cried because I miss her

Because I will not hear her warm sonorous voice again

Because she will not wake me up

By gently rubbing my back

I mourned the loss of her

I mourned the state of the world without her

I did not mourn for her

For what she might miss

She traded her ashes for gold

“I don’t know if I ever properly mourned her”

He said

Son to grandson

And I understood

A Smiling Face (Leavetakings IV)

The green wall of the mountains hums

Silently with life under the grey-veiled sunlight.

I see the joy-valley of my youth rushing to greet me

The pinnacles in staggered rows to either side

Stand like an honor-guard for a returning monarch;

Their heads lost in the smoke

Of greedy clouds who stretch ravenous jaws

To devour the entire sky.

I see the falls that rush down past ferns and spruce

Down bounding grass hills and leaping grey cliffs

To meet the highway and pour their libations at my feet.

I see that mountain with the folds of stone

Like a discarded blanket

Or some ancient sea frozen in its undulation

And thrust up victoriously into the grey waves of the air;

Sea meeting sea

I go on to that dry valley where

Green irrigated fields form a stark patchwork

Against the thirsty straw-coloured hills

And then on to the lake that stretches its lazy legs

Down, down the valley

Tickling its distant toes in some forgotten river

Leaving its sleepy mass in the floor of the vale.

I enter into that city like one entering a forgotten dream

Still lost in the echoing well of the past

I drink deeply its draught but it brings no memory of the city;

Only the breeze of the dry air,

The smell of freshly picked sage

And a smiling face.

Her face

The one I came through all these meanderings of my past to reach

But not to touch

Only to see and to listen and to speak.

But the words and the time have been spent

And the ever-flowing inescapable waterfall of my journey

Has led me back to this city of exiles

Spread in a land with no peaks to watch over us

No falls splash and babble their welcome

No hints of the distant ocean reach this stagnant air

Diminutive parks form a stark patchwork

Against the cold iron and faceless sprawl of concrete

And the steel pinnacles here have too many unseeing eyes.

Yet I strove into past-lands

I spoke careful words and listened to subdued responses

I saw and heard beauty
Only to turn away again

Leaving that glorious sun-blessed, moon-kissed vale

Back in the shimmering fadings of memory

Unaware if I should be drawn there again

By a smiling face.