No Answers
Did you know?
You left us in the deep dark of an October night.
With no warning, out of reach, out of sight.

Did you know in your heart it would be like that?
Or did it come upon you unaware,
Catch you, as it caught us, off guard?

What were you feeling when you called out
To the nurse from your hospital bed
In those last moments? Anger? Dread?

Were you heartbroken? Did you want us to be there?
Did you curse that we weren’t? Did you rage against God?
Plead to be spared for the birthday you had planned,

Or were you worrying about the leg of lamb
In your freezer, the one you intended to cook for Hallowe’en?
Were you preparing instructions for us in your mind?

Maybe you felt rapture, as the warmth drained from your body
And your feet and hands grew cold. Maybe you knew.

Maybe there was a light, warm and bright, beyond comprehension,
Calling you. And did you shed your body, your soul eager and alert,
And move towards the light? And did it feel like home?

Was the moment of death miraculous, rapturous, all you imagined
And hoped for? And did your soul surge with joy?
And was there someone there to welcome you? I hope so.

Or were those cheap curtains around your bed, with their gaudy
Yellow flowers, the last thing you saw on this earth before you
Lay back and closed your eyes and your breath failed you.

In those dying moments, did you feel sad and lonely,
Lost, abandoned? Did you want to come back,
Make a scene, dig in, lash out, bestir your failing body?

Did you want to protest, slap the face of the nurse
Who bent over you, disrupt her calm and comforting demeanour?
Or did you surrender, meek and mild, to the inevitable?

And are you now? And where?
Is your soul adrift in the vast, diffuse immensity
Of Death’s universe? And are you aware of us?

Do we still irritate you or have you risen beyond all that?
And do you regard us now with tender clarity?
And can you hear us call out to you?

And did you know?
And –

The Golden Stream
Not a wide river, but a mountain stream.
We criss-cross from bank to bank
Picking our steps with care,
Searching out the good ground for our path.

The dog runs ahead like a soul messenger
Guiding us past heaps of stones,
Rigged water troughs
And metal gates tied to stone posts.

We pass curious horses and indifferent cattle
On our slow ascent upstream,
Our breaths and the scrunch of boots
Audible over the bird song.

We pause at a turning point
Above the tree line, savour the foretaste
Of our return, as the dog waits to find
Direction out, and drinks from the stream.

She twitches her nose and smells
Rain on the wind. Without a word,
We agree to turn back. Our boots
Find purchase on the river gravel.

I recite a litany of trees and medicinal plants
– Ash, birch, elder, oak and sycamore;
Feverfew, wild garlic, meadowsweet –
Though there are none I can identify.

Be not afraid to weep, I long to say to you.
I will hold you in these arms
And take the hurt from you,

I will put it in my knapsack and carry it
Off like an incendiary device
To be buried deep and far from harm’s way.

Have no fear. I swear:
This back is strong; these hands are steady.
Neither these arms nor this heart will fail you.

The Wind Rises
We are confined, locked in.
Outside the wind is howling.
We hear the rush; the voices jumbled together,
The whispered pleading of the dead
Talking to us,
Crying out their sad thoughts,
In mournful sighs.
“We are not gone,” they say.
They swoop and gather, rise and fall
On the turn of the wind.

We listen, but their meaning escapes us.

Heart-full they rush forward
Like a troupe of dancers, or fall back
Like defeated protesters, fearful
Of what may follow, fearful of our reaction,
Their arms raised to protect themselves,
To keep back the outrage of the living.

On the TV, the announcer
Announces the latest deaths.
The dead fall silent.

And then it builds again,
The collective cry, gathering,
Gathering in a rush of despair and anguish,
Love and loss.
The wind howls.
The dead cry out.
And we close our ears
And lock the doors of our hearts.

And still the wind rises.