Why can only the living mourn?

What makes us suppose
that only the living grieve?

Now all but lost in this new
and familiar world
of tall, leaning-together buildings,
grey and grubby as they are.
I walk between them in the rain,
tasting the water, soaking it in,
into the pores of my skin,
into every sensation.
Pure water. Holy water. Water for baptism.
Water enough to end a world
or build another drop by drop,
enough to bring world peace,
enough to wash the old one away.

I know these tenements of old,
she lives in one of them, she whom I mourn.
All around me the echoes of water. Water running.
Water splashing and gurgling.
Holy water to bless my mood.
Not to rubbish or vanquish it,
but to fashion and welcome it.

And she, does she grieve for me?
she in her tall, dark world,
topped by the light of the sun?
Does she hear my rain. Or even see it?
Does she know that I grieve?
that not only the living can mourn?


Sincere thanks for all the kind and interesting comments on How do I prepare for death? and huge apologies if I frightened anyone. It was, as always, interesting to hear of the beliefs of our Druid, Hindu and other friends. Again, today's poem was not specifically addressed to my present condition, but I guess must have been influenced by it. Hope it was not another fright or a poem too far!
As for the even more appreciated enquiries and good wishes for my health, I cannot begin to tell you how much they mean to me. I did manage to type out a personal reply to each one -- and forgot to save it!! That is about the measure of my present state of mind. I was warned that I would feel exhausted towards the end of my treatment, but in fact I did so from the first day, and still do beyond midday. That might not have mattered, as A.M. was when I mostly worked, but A.M. now seems to be taken up by a steady stream of medics of every hue and tint. I will now do my best to get round to you all. Please keep the comments and posts coming, and I will continue to attempt the same. It is just weakness, sleepiness and a lack of opportunity preventing me from doing more at present. Thanking you once again.

How do I prepare for death?

(Not to read too much into this.)


How do I prepare for death?
I asked a wise man long ago.
You don't, my son,
the wise man said:
Let Death prepare for you.

Her laundered sheets
and candle lights
or spring flowers round the bed
will take you back
to early days...
How bright the vision then!
How clear the way ahead!

She'll sweep the house
of all those fears
accrued along the way:
the frights that have no form.
Not dreads of death,
but worse than those:
to not exist;
the aweful void.

Such terrors follow the more solid ones,
those obstacles the world threw up
to make you doubt or start again,
to hesitate.
Each in their turn depart.

(Always the optimist, I hope to be around a little more hereon than just recently.)

There was a witch

There was a witch once lived in a tree,
as witchy as any old witch could be --
not that you'd know, for she dressed quite so,
sometimes as duchess, sometimes as queen,
but never were witch's rags to be seen.

The bones of the tree were as dry as hers,
but she'd wrap herself in some sumptuous furs
(under which she'd wear but never a stitch)
and fly to her mansion of musty smells
in the land of voodoos and spells.

The twigs of her broom were coming apart.
They should have told her. They hadn't the heart.
So the three pet birds she kept in the tree --
Tax and Id and the long-dead Dermy --
tweeted to warn: Stay away from the sea!

But slowly the witch lost power to the deep.
(Old adversaries these, concerned to keep
their secret enigmas inviolate.)
(It seemed inevitable that the weight
of Nature's mysteries would seal her fate.)

A late submission to This week's prompt at The Mag.

Silly Little Nonsense Poem

Down in the left hand corner of the world,
beyond the rows of buttersplatch
and gongoliferous trees,
beyond the stirring spoonpools
where the sizals ooze their way
and all the lochs are tightly locked
except on Turtle Day,
'tis there my granny taught me
how to whingel whingels in --
and please to whingel whingels in
before they start to spin.

'Twas when whingelling a whingel
that I almost met my match:
its krox had ripened early
and was hanging off the catch.
With lowered cranial blubberbutt
it came at me like frrruck --
which is whingel for the best of rotten luck.

I jumped a passing songtrain
that the frangle bird had sung
and clung on to the clutchets
(which tell us right from wrong)
'till we got To Pokeham Arrberry
where I watched them ghoul the sun.
And having ghouled the sun they went
and ghouled the blood red ocean espcially for me.