rain

it rained the day you died

did you know?

teardrops on the glass
raindrops on our faces


i wanted to push your bed into the garden

cool refreshing gentle fall on your hot hot parched skin
sweet rain in your dry dry mouth

and then the sky cleared
and the sun set

she

no more difficult steps

no more tortuous excursions to the window, the toilet, the door

no more strong determined fragile tired tired smiles

her life has shrunk to this room
this bed

absorbed now in the process of each breath
she is so preoccupied with the business of dying
she is too busy for living

she

the primary she
my beginning and ending

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

her slippers

have become heartbreaking

playground

up and down
round and about
rollercoaster speed lurching heart-in-the-mouth

reality the whooshing sensation
giddy speed

clarity reality sharp detail in the moment
time suspended

still silence of experience
muffling the blurry busy noise otherness out there

at a different pace
in another place

swings and roundabouts

backwards and forwards

up and down
back and round again

here we go

hang on

smile
scream


hard to relax when holding on for dear life

hard to smile

holding on to

dear
life

Haiku

sleep



The sound of her breathing

too intimate
to share

Nursery rhymes

Each peach pear plum
A few things about my mum.

Heavy-hearted, what to say?
will she live another day?

Little Mrs. Pepperpot, shrinking to doll size
Bitzer Maloney, all skinny and boney

except her dear hateful belly, humpty-dumpty like

Walking on knives smiling through the laceration
telling stories in the face of the dark

a sea of tears
all those lost mothers and motherless children
a needle of ice in the heart
the nightingale singing, bleeding into the rose

white to red

Sweetness and horror
Comfort and loss
Joy and pain
Growth
Life
Death
Redemption

the fairy stories helped us learn when we were little
and then we learn all over again


Like the Cheshire Cat
- there's not much left of her except her smile.

Where to stop? heavy hearted
How soon will we be parted?

pocket

her head is so small

like an old old person

or a child

i could put her in my pocket

and bring her home

heartbreak

the way she smiles at him 

could break and heal your heart

in a long instant

spirit and matter

How is the spirit connected 

to this gristly bloody network of sinew and bone? 

am I my body? 

i ask because it hurts so much, this ache in my chest 

How can longing be felt by tissue and muscle, flesh and blood? 

How does regret render the palate deaf dumb and blind to taste? 

the dull weight of misery pulls like a stone in the lungs and stomach 

grief constraining breath 

the body bears what we can't express

expresses what we can't bear

Laundry

(Dirty linen in public) 

 

Baggy saggy slack elastic. 

 

No give or bounce or spring left. 

 

All stretched out 

 

thin 

 

worn out with tension 

Grey with fatigue

and too much washing

Surfaces

Coping. 

On the face of it. 

Living the day to day.

Calm, composed.

On the surface.

Defying gravity and possibility

Learning to float, to skate, to walk on water

treading softly, scared to break the surface tension

taut and fragile, bearing implausible weight.

What lies beneath the surface?

behind the eyes?

beyond the horizon?

Unexplored secret depths

How is that inkly silent world connected with

sparkling reflection? on the surface?

Splashing sometimes, paddling, playing at the edges

testing the water, deliberately unthinking

sinking toes into the squelchy squaggy softness

sinking

not-so-given, not-so solid underfoot.

Imponderable slogging of treading water

water like mud

Surfing sometimes

inappropriate exhilaration, flying racing height fleeting illusion of

weightlessness

fleeing the mundane

moments of happiness, forgetfulness, shallow triviality

timeless superficial detachment a moment in space

speed and balance fend off instability and danger

the up and down

crashing

febrile with hints of unseen depths

pull of the undertow

returning

salt water on my face again.

head up, chin up 

keep busy

keep afloat

keep above the surface

on the surface

https://limp-lettuce.blogspot.com/2006/09/

Cinqain

Cinquain - inspired by this. 

Journey 

Here to somewhere

Facing changing landscapes

Shifting lost security bewilders

Passage

Thesaurus of loss

Bereavement reaving bereft 

Mistakenly I thought reaving meant tearing ripping, sundering apt for the torn ache in my chest.

It means robbery, plunder, deprivation, carrying off theft, violence, ravaging 

Ravage, damage, devastation 

Also apt. 

Words can't describe the searing sweet sadness of the weeks, days, hours

A common experience commonplace and extraordinary mundane routine unique and indescribable plain and uncomplicated also incomprehensible.

I'm speechless and full of words. 

Mute and verbose. 

This is the hardest thing I have ever done. 

 I keep checking on you, like a child, watching your breathing. 

Trying to fill a gaping chasm with paltries, trivialities, carings, motherings, little offerings, show-and-tellings, trying to please, a child myself your child. 

 

I want to snuggle up in your bed in the mornings put my head in your lap in the afternoons 

 hold your shoulders while you vomit in the toilet mix your pills with honey 

Its ugly, it isn't poetic 

It sure as hell isn't justice 

I don't want to go through your wardrobe.

I don't want your little and generous bequests.

I want to bring you flowers every day hour 

buy you clothes to fit your hatefully growing stomach

stroke your hair hold your hand. 

Hold tight, don't let go. 

Swelling stomach and swollen legs The fecundity of disease 

Death mimics life. 

Ugly beautiful honey bitter sharp and soft grief cocoons and numbs, deadening sensitizes, abrasive and raw oxymoronic. 

So much the hardest thing

Watching you dying while living living while dying.

Grief

I sense my mind skirting around it 

devious in its deflections deftly stepping aside out of the path of an oncoming pain 

 Holding my breath Will I make it past? 

through over out beyond the insurmountable implacable, impervious unavoidable fact of it Fate. Fact. 

The elephant in the room. Its going nowhere. It can't be tiptoed round forever. Footprints in the butter 

Unavoidable evidence. 

grief gravity greaving grave grevious 

I sense my mind returning to it compulsively instinctively tonguing the cavity 

probing the depth of pain 

exploring the enormous shape and dimensions of absence

veer away, swerve can't go there yet ever the mind shuts down shies away refuses the fence 

 diversionary tactics distractions denials 

 Don't stop to think eyes shut keep moving, don't look down 

Balance depends on speed

Sisyphus (unfinished)

Sisyphus (unfinished) 

She grits her teeth mouth-ful of sharp sand 

muscle solid heft against dead-weight of effort 

Resolute corrugated brow, 

traces of bitter sweat squinting ahead impossible to see beyond or through the dense grey hugeness massive concretion of rock 

hard to guage distances ahead 

Onwards Upwards Inch by tortuous inch 

Neck, back, body taut and straining, shouldering the boulder knotted in spasm 

She finds brief respite in fantasies of weightlessness 

of flight and freedom

     hollow bones, feathery wings, soaring in clear blue sky 

     swift silvery fish gliding cool in silky water 

Could she simply step aside, leave the boulder crashing down alone? 

 Would she be crushed in its path, left damaged incomplete? 

Should they ever reach the top, then what? 

how would it be? 

Views from a summit, at rest. slack, relaxed, gazing at distant horizons? 

a stable place to lean her back?  safe refuge? 

 

Some are crushed by rocks

Some build on them

Nesting

 

 

I see them everywhere 

cradling in the still bare wintry branches of the trees 

complicating the stark simple lines and angles 

 

Precarious, bleak, risky lattices of twig 

 nestling exposed balancing reckless so high above the ground

tenuous fragility of interlacing branches

skeletal leaves 

breathtaking even at such a distance foolhardy dangerous brave necessary 

raise a chord of identification in me a pang of painful recognition

unfeasible, extraordinary they have survived the winds and blasts of winter 

They must be sturdier than they look

tenacious 

Will the shoots, leaves, growth, verdure of spring and summer shield and protect them? 

Hide from prying eyes like mine

buffer from wind and weather

secure, fix and fasten

grow into a green cocoon-womb of warmth and safety private, intimate, shared refuge flesh and blood on bare rib and bone home life enclosing nurturing life? 

One can only hope.

 

ADDENDUM Some of these trees have since been brutally pollarded. Defoliated. Mutilated knucklebones gesturing obscenely into the sky. Empty. Bereft.

The hounds of love

Limp version:
(click here for crisp version)(probably preferable)

1. Name of band/musician
Kate Bush
2. Are you male or female?
This Woman’s work
3. Describe yourself
Running up that hill
4. How do you feel about yourself?
The hounds of love are after me
5. Describe your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend
In search of Peter Pan
6. Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend
The man with the child in his eyes
7. Describe where you want to be
Under Ice
8. Describe how you live
Watching you without me
9. Describe how you love
Sexual healing
10. What would you wish for if you had one wish?
Deeper understanding
11. Share a few words of wisdom.
Don’t push your foot on the heartbrake
12. Now say goodbye.
Get out of my house.

not for too long

Things I think (at the moment) that I can't go on doing for too much longer: 

being positive

crying in the shower (it still makes your eyes red, eventually)

needing a long hug from someone other than (as well as) my daughter

hoping

saying "I love you" when I know the answer will be "I know". Full stop.

waiting

But maybe I'll feel better tomorrow