Category: grief

The Pilgrimage

A soft-sided,
well worn,
briefcase
slouches
in a closet

One side agape,
a red lanyard
stuffed inside –
occupational identity

A row of black, brown, and gray pumps
line up beside it – a thin layer of dust
betraying idleness.

Silent, unblinking,
a television recedes
into the wall,
flanked on either side
by smiling images –
shadows of nostalgia.

Stacks of books
and journals
rumour
a scholarly mind.

The woman,
to whom all these trivialities
once had relevance
is no longer here.

She has been called to another purpose.

(Originally written in 2014, The Pilgrimage strives to help me understand the purpose behind losing all to illness. Image my own)

Dichotomy of Christmas

Between festive preparations
and Mother’s dying wishes
I walk a surreal line – numbed
surface belying broiling depths

I will serve the bird, scrape
the carcass, sing praises
and slip into solitude to grieve –
Mother’s flesh languishing.

(Last year, when I penned this poem, my mom was contemplating assisted dying. I supported her wish, but not without accompanying grief. This year, her absence weighs heavily on the preparations for Christmas, and I know I am not alone. Many of us feel our losses even deeper at this time of year.)

The Call That Never Came

I called you.
That one time.
Poured my heart out..
such despair.

I called you.
You weren’t there.
Left a message –
garbled words
rushed to beat
the inevitable beep.

Regret immediate,
then panic –
ineradicable
this outpouring
of a lonely heart,
fantasizing.

I called you.
You didn’t answer.
You never called back.

Thank you for that.

(Poem first appeared on One Woman’s Quest II. Image my own)

Lorraine

Remember how we fought
at four and five –
over whose turn it was
to push the baby buggy?

Your Campbell soup baby face
locks curlier than mine;  
eyes a brighter sparkle

How you withdrew from me with age
ashamed your mother was an alcoholic –
I did not care, carried my own secrets

How you chose drugs to cope,
while I went straight – the line
too wide to cross, it seemed.

You were my roots, dear friend
the rock I needed to ground me
Life, back then, never easy

Secrets tore us apart – projections
of judgments never actualized
somehow, I never measured up

I see you now, shrouded in the mist
of my own grief, understand that your turmoil
ran deeper than I had known, and one day

when we meet in Heaven,
I will embrace the whole you
and we will laugh at how secrets

whose very disclosure would have solidified us
kept us more and more distant – so little
did we know of love at the time.

(Lorraine died at the age of 26 – complications from drug use. After her death, I learned that she was a lesbian, a secret that she thought she could not share with me at the time. She had not known that I would not have judged her. Sadly, we never had the chance. I loved her so.)

Mourning

A murder of crows
peck at a carcass
beneath the old Spruce
Likely dragged there
by a coyote after feasting

They do that sometimes
a brazen act of rebellion
our bricked presence
blocking the path

I reached for the phone
this morning, wanting to relay
current events, and then…stopped
remembering you are gone
only my carcass remains, rots
at the mocking of crows

Coyotes are tricksters, they say
and I feel picked apart
preyed upon on my own path
the wounds of the past
inviting the mind’s vultures.

What is it all about
this mortality/ immortality?

A dove rests on the porch rail
sleeping despite the crow fray

Peace slumbers on this mournful day.

(Image my own)