Death

Carved in Stone 54 & 55

54

On the Night of Sorrows,
the Spanish invaders,
defeated,
fled the city.

Plunder weighed them down –
gold and silver,
images carved from jade,
wealth beyond measure.

The fleeing troops,
floundered, then foundered,
sinking rapidly
in the lake’s dark waters.

55

Cortés retreated to the coast
where he built small boats
and carried them in pieces
back to Tenochtitlán

He assembled them there,
and attacked, by water, the Aztec city
that had only been attacked by land.

Tenochtitlán,
one of the world’s great wonders,
more populous than London or Paris,
destroyed by internal conflict
and an armada of small boats
that outsailed the Aztec
dugout canoes.

What was there, at the end,
but wailing, burning, and death.

Clepsydra 35 & 36

35
… to save myself
     I must grasp it firmly
          as I would a nettle
               not with my hands
                    but with my teeth

but my hands are tied
     behind my back
a cloth is bound
     over my eyes         
          and I cannot see … 

36

… I struggle and squirm
     until released
          I float ashore
               and stand on the sea wall
                    calling out to the moon
                         begging her not to hide
                              her scarred face


I entreat the ebbing tide
     to carry me with it out to sea
          past the island
               beyond the lighthouse
                    into deep water

waves stronger than any

     thing I have known
          thrust rough fingers
               under my arms
                    lift me up
                         then drag me down

to the depths
     where I can finally rest
          in peace …

Commentary:

Mors omnia solvit – death solves everything. But does it? What about the crossword, the jigsaw puzzle, the unsolved ? What about the problem of life itself? What is it? How does it function? And what is that poor bird doing lying on its PEI beach half-covered in sand? What problems did he have solved?

” my hands are tied behind my back, a cloth is bound over my eyes and I cannot see” …  so how can I tell where I am going and why I am going there? Simple questions – yet there are no answers, none that are given to me anyway. And who am I to reason why? Is my detiny, as always, to just do and die?

I do not know. The bird on the beach does not know. The ebbing tide doesn’t know, or care what it carries out with it. And what are we anyway? Why do we search for meaning in the meaningless? For answers in the absurd? And why does Sisyphus roll his rock up the hill, release it, then walk back down, pick it up and carry it up again? And why must we imagine that Sisyphus is happy? Our daily work – ce boureau sans merci – why should we be thankful for it?  Because there is nothing else? Because otherwise we would be abandoned? Or just because?

Oh, ho-ho-ho-ho, tell me if you know, who the… where the … why …. the what for … where did that one go? Even poor old Alf and dear old ‘Erbet, somewhere on the Somme, didn’t know the answer to that one. And they had their little dugout made a mess of by a bomb. Well, at least they found another hole, but when that other shell went over, it left them still wondering! And don’t we all?

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

Daily writing prompt
What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
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What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

I will be eighty next birthday. Sadly, I am aware that my life is moving slowly towards its endgame. The major pieces have left the chessboard and I, the King, shuffle forward, a step at a time, then one to the side, and sometimes one back, as my two faithful pawns age with me. The end is never far away at this stage of the game. One slip, one misjudgment, and it’s checkmate, mate. So – how to respond to today’s prompt?

Quite simply, I am now paying more attention to my death than to my life. I have already updated my will, and I have given power of attorney to a person I trust. I have spoken with my financial adviser, and he has given me a Will Companion. It contains a whole series of details to fill in – bank accounts, passwords, online contacts, clubs, societies, social media, precious objects, and, last of all, a page of funeral instructions. That was an eye-opener – everything from funeral home, instructions for service, cremation of burial, plot number or scattering, church, financial arrangements – well, I didn’t panic, but wow, it made me feel very uncomfortable.

In the first 24 hours after my death, someone will have to make between 40 and 70 decisions, all impacting the manner of my departure. If I want things done the way I want, versus the way they might happen, and if I want to choose burial vs cremation, order of service, hymns, obituary, family friends, acknowledgements, then – according to those who know – I should be doing it now. So, big decision, I went online and studied the recommendations of my local funeral home.

I have already filled in several online pages of forms and I have asked them to contact me, which they will do soon. Then we will talk over all those details that I so desperately want to avoid. But death is inevitable. To face it and accept it and to prepare for it while I am still alive is the bravest and the best and the most sensible thing I can do. So, here I go, paying attention, while still alive, to the little details that will surround my death.

The inevitable? Yes. Above, in the opening photo, you can see a Mexican Death Mask. The small pearl at the centre is the seed from which the baby will grow. The seed is the round spot beneath youthful beauty’s nose. then comes wrinkled old age, and wrapped around is the white skull, the final beauty, which I will never see, but others may. Writing these words, I do not feel sad or gloomy. I have lived in Oaxaca, Mexico, and know the powerful, loving emotions that surround the Day of the Dead. I feel grateful that I have good friends to advise me and to stand by me and my family. And when, not if, the inevitable happens, I will have done my best to be prepared. Pax amorque.

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Daily writing prompt
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
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Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

I wish I had learned earlier how hard it is to grow old and how difficult it is to prepare for it. My first serious rugby injury, age 16, torn cartilage in left knee. Doctor’s advice: give the game up now. Later, you’ll regret it if you don’t. My response: I’m tough. 60+ years later, my left knee still creaks and I rub ointment in every morning. My second serious rugby injury, age 20, damaged lower back. Doctor’s advice: give the game up now. You’ll regret it later if you don’t. My response: I’m tough. 60 years later, my back really hurts. I rub ointment in every morning, take pain killers, and stretch. Same with hips, from kicking! One of my rugby friends, about the same age as me, has two knee replacements, one shoulder replacement, and one hip replacement. If he’s not the $6,000,000 man, he must be pretty close.

But there is a story beyond that story. I was sent to a series of boarding schools and no, I didn’t go there willingly. In the summers, I travelled abroad to learn foreign languages that were foreign to others but became familiar to me. I never saw my grandparents as they aged. Often, when they died, I was in school, or away on the continent. I never understood the ageing process. I never witnessed the natural decay of those whom I loved. I never learned that lesson. When I left university, I emigrated, and the same sequence happened with my parents. I was never there when it mattered. I was always somewhere else. And when I was there, I heard the usual litanies: “This never happens when you are not here. It’s your fault.” Or else, “this wouldn’t have happened if you had been here.” Told to me by a close relation at my mother’s funeral. I flew back home, though it was never really my home, to be present for that.

But what is the lesson that I wish I had learned earlier? Alas, there is not just one lesson, but a series of lessons. How to deal with the ageing process. How to face sickness and ill health in age. How to face diminishment with grace and humor. How to accept the natural process that occurs whether we want it to or not. How to face the gradual decline in someone, close to you, your life companion whom you really love. How to face the fear of passing (FOGO to some) and how to pass that lesson on to our own young ones. How to face my own end and how to die with as much dignity as possible.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Sharp-shinned Hawk

She surveys her empire
from a tall tree, then steps
into space, plunging her
body’s weight downwards,
diving into fragile air.

A feathered arrow,
she makes contact, feet first,
and pins the unsuspecting robin
to the ground. His shrill shriek
emerges from a beak
that shreds failing life.

The hawk’s claws clench.
Her victim weakens.
His eyes glaze over.
One final spasm,
a last quick twitch,
the robin is gone.

One wing drags, flaps weakly,
borne skywards in the hawk’s
triumphant claws.

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
Sharp-shinned Hawk

A Speaker Bespoken

Meditations on Messiaen
Revelations

7

A Speaker Bespoken

They asked him to speak at her funeral
but he never knew who she really was.
He only knew she loved the whisky bottle
more than she loved life. “What can I say?”
he asked. “Say that you loved her.” “I didn’t.”
“Say how much she loved you.” “She didn’t.
And she loved her bottle so much more.”

Should he say how he found her, soaked in urine,
covered in vomit, naked on the kitchen floor?
Should he describe the blend of alcohol and body
scents, her personal perfume, flooding the bedroom?
Should he repeat the four-letter words, and worse,
she used when he tried to stop her drinking?
Should he tell how she took her rings to town,
pawned them, and left the slips on the table
where he would find them? He paid her debts,
collected her rings, returned them. Should he tell
how she sold them again and again?
How she would play hunt the thimble,
round and round the house until she found
where he had hidden them, then took them,
and pawned them once more?

The chaplain shrugged. “Say what you want,
whatever you wish, but you have to speak.”
And speak he did, so choked up with emotion
that he broke down and cried and never a word
emerged from his mouth. An audience of chairs.
The few friends who attended also broke down
and hugged him, and said he had spoken volumes
and they had understood every single word.

Click on the link below for Roger’s reading.

A Speaker Bespoken

Dark Angel

Meditations on Messiaen.
Quartet for the End of Time.

2

Dark Angel

He will come, the dark angel,
and will meet me face to face.

He will take all that I own,
for it is only temporary
and all my possessions are on loan.

My house, my wife, my car,
my daughter, my grand-child,
 my garden, my trees, my flowers,
They are not mine.
I do not possess them.

I only own this aching heart,
these ageing bones,
this death that has walked beside me,
step by step, every day
since the day I was born.

That indeed is mine,
and nobody else’s.
That is my sole possession.
That is the only thing I own.

Click here for Roger’s reading.
Scroll down to appropriate episode.
Dark Angel

Man from Merthyr

Man from Merthyr

Memory loss punched holes in your head
and let in the dark, instead of the light.
Constellations faded from your sight,
erased by the arch-angel’s coal-dust wing.

 “I’m shrinking,” you said, the last time I saw you,
you, who had been taller, were now smaller than me.

 Tonight, when the harvest moon shines bright
and drowns the stars in its sea of light,
I will sit by my window and watch for your soul
as it rides its coal-fired rocket to eternity.

My eyes will be dry. I do not want pink runnels
running down this coal-miner’s unwashed face.
I’ll sing you a Welsh lullaby, to help you sleep.

“When the coal comes from the Rhondda
down the Merthyr-Taff Vale line,
when the coal comes from the Rhondda
I’ll be there.”

With you, my friend, shoulder to shoulder.
“With my golden pick and shovel, I’ll be there.”
Farewell, my friend, safe journey, sleep deep,
as deep as a Rhondda coal mine may you sleep.

Big Hand / Small Hand

Big Hand / Small Hand

It’s late in my life, with the big hand stuck on the nine, at a quarter to some thing, and the small hand twitching its red-tipped needle of blood. Yesterday, the breakdown van called for my body and towed me to the doctor’s. “Cough!” she said. “Say ninety-nine! Now cough again!” All the while, cold hands probed my unprotected body. Bottoms up? Thumbs down? It’s hard to see that the wine glass stands a quarter full when seventy five per cent of the wine has gone and the empty bottle lies drained on the operating table. I sit in front of the mirror and examine the palpitating heart they have torn from my chest. Flesh of my flesh, it beats in my hand like an executioner’s drum. I hear the tumbril drawing near. My colleagues sharpen their knitting needles. My lungs are twin balls of wool knotted tight in my chest.

Variants

Not one of us knows when the skeleton in the limelight will peel off her gloves, doff her hat, lay down her white cane and use us as fuels for a different kind of fire. Grief lurks in the bracelet’s silver snare of aging hair. We kick for a while and struggle at dawn’s bright edge, we creatures conditioned by time and its impossibilities. What possible redemptions unfurl their shadowy shapes at the water’s edge? A dream angel, this owl singing wide-eyed like a moribund swan bordering on that one great leap upwards, preparing to vanish into thin air. Some say a table awaits on an unseen shore; others that a rowing boat is tied to the river bank, ready for us to row ourselves across. Who knows? Yesterday’s horoscopes sprinkle butterflies of news as the snow wraps us all in the arcane blanket of each new beginning.

Comment: It’s been a strange week. In spite of all my resolutions, I missed my Wednesday Workshop and my Thursday Thoughts. Never mind: the latter weren’t very pleasant anyway. It has been pouring with rain again, and, as the WWI song says “Back to bread and water, as I have done before,” except in this case, it’s pills and needles, and I get the first shot on Tuesday. Nothing to worry about. I’ve been there before. It’s all preventative. But the body-clock is ticking away and I am getting no older and people around me are drifting slowly away. One of the players I used to coach at rugby, an excellent prop forward, went AWOL on Wednesday, MIA, and I read about his passing yesterday in the obituary column of the local newspaper. 18 years younger than me. He might be gone, but his memory lingers on, strongly for me. I have been thinking about him and his family and their tragic loss. My heart goes out to them and I offer my condolences, but what can one do, other than sympathize, celebrate a life well-led, and accept that all of us, poor creatures, are born to die. And if not now, when?

Man from Merthyr

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Man from Merthyr

 Memory loss punched holes in your head
and let in the dark, instead of the light.
Constellations faded from your sight,
erased by the arch-angel’s coal-dust wing.

 “I’m shrinking,” you said, the last time I saw you,
you, who had been taller, were now smaller than me.

 Tonight, when the harvest moon shines bright
and drowns the stars in its sea of light,
I will sit by my window and watch for your soul
as it rockets its way to eternity.

My eyes will be dry. I do not want pink runnels
running down this coal-miner’s unwashed face.
I’ll sing you this lullaby, to help you sleep.

“When the coal comes from the Rhondda
down the Merthyr-Taff Vale line,
when the coal comes from the Rhondda
I’ll be there,” with you, shoulder to shoulder.
Farewell, my friend, sleep safe, sleep deep.