Belated Words

Write On!

Tag: death

  • Ninety-nine Years Ago

    




    

    




    Ninety-nine years ago an instant of time was snapped.

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    A picture of a life just beginning preserved by caring;
    April 1926, rural Alabama. Her birth certificate denotes,
     in cursive, under Doctor-Midwife: Mrs. B.  A midwife 
    or, who knows now, just by chance a caring neighbor?
     Is that the birthing sheet hung to dry in the background?

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    See the slate-looking stones placed under the rockers and
    the two pillows in dinge softness framing a newborn life; 
    daughter, sister, mother; an endless array of assignations.   
    See the leather covered seat... the rocker's an inside chair.
    No flash bulbed cameras back then for poor farmer folks;
    she had to be brought outside to face the sun...the glare 
    of life's beginnings. See her tiny fingers grasping, searching
     for something to clutch, to squeeze...always...to cling to?

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    Haiku
    
			
    shells fall as spring rain…
    

    the widows child dies…and yet
    

    hearts are leaping pups
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Turtle
    
			
    When five, she scraped in soft, black ground
    

    a hole—a grave—to cuddle what she found
    

    below the steps; a baby turtle; dead.
    

    Splayed neck and legs and cracked green shell
    

    told her of death and worse, of disregard.
    

     
    

    She took her sister’s glass jewel-box
    

    and lay Turtle in on velvet cloth, covered
    

    him over, patted, caressed his final bed;
    

    she sang a song she’d heard the choir sing
    

    while fashioning a cross from sticks and string.
    

     
    

    Three days straight, she exhumed his remains
    

    but Turtle’s knowing smile did not change.
    

    At death, soul flies, flesh melts away, they said.
    

    At five, she wanted only fireflies’ night vitrine
    

    to sooth a disquiet mind; to run, to sing.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    My Fortieth Year…3:47 A.M.
    
			
    There were footsteps outside my door last night;
    

    loose gravel crunched, there was a catch in a gait.
    

    Something stood squinting in the darkness
    

    checking a number or matching a date.
    

    My heart ran rampant, throbbing, pumping dread;
    

    an emptying slash…..now a cavernous hollow.
    

    Opened now……anti-being knows my smell;
    

    when will it beckon for me to follow?
    

    I was actually 40 before I seriously considered and accepted the concept of mortality.  I awoke in the middle of the night with the most horrid feeling which haunted me for days.  This poem was an effort many, many years  ago to put words to it.  This feeling initiated the clichéd “mid-life crisis” which I quickly and completely recovered from…I’m now content, accepting and at ease.