limp lettuce: waiting

like a Belsen survivor
life stripped away to the bare bones

gaunt, yellow, stretched
the hollow people stumbling out into life
blinking in the light

You will not return from wherever it is that you are
not into this life, this world
your eyes sealed, unseeing

what do you see? wherever you are?
what do you hear?
what do you know?

do you know our voices?
whispering murmurings love and loss chit and chat trivial exchanges crisp packet rustlings rememberings hello-farewells laughter and tears tea-drinking planning silences

do you know us?

you will not survive and see the sun again
in this world

so very very far from being who you are

still yourself
precious fragile tenuous

but you are not retrievable

About limp lettuce

I began this poetry blog as catharsis, at a very difficult point in my life when I was dealing with terminal illness of my mother, and potential collapse of my marriage. The words just emerged, formed poems and were unbidden and insistent. And helped. Now (2022) at another very difficult time when my family are coping with bereavement and adjusting to living with chronic illness and depression, the words are swarming in my head again. They circle, form patterns and have found their way here. I find the way this happens so fascinating. And think (hope) that maybe some less painful reflections might also start to find a home here. And that some of all this may resonate with you. © 2006. All words and photos on this blog are copyright to me, the writer and photographer - except in any instances where the post attributes someone else.

limp lettuce

Thursday, May 17, 2007

waiting

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