For Ann who died of a rare cancer of the bone and for Mary Kate who chose the day and the way.

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A Hunger for Bone

we scattered your relics, charred bone
blithe spirit, to be rocked by waves,
to be rocked into yourself, the rhythm
enchanting you with sapphire spume,
sighs merging your poetry with the ether,
rending our hearts of their shivered memories,
shattering the ocean floor with your dreams
lost in lapping lazuli tides, dependable ~
relief perhaps after pain-swollen years of
suckle on the shards of a capricious grace

those last weeks …
your restless sleeps disrupted by
medical monitors, their metallic pings
not unlike meditation bells calling to you,
bringing you to presence and contemplation,
while bags hung as prayer-flags on a zephyr,
fusing blood, salt, water
into collapsing veins, bleeding-out
under skin, yellowing and puce-stained,
fetid air filled, we came not with chant,
but the breath of love, we tumbled in
one-by-one to stand by you

to stand by you
when death arrived
and it arrived in sound, not in stealth,
broadcasting its jaundiced entrance
i am here, death bellowed on morphine
in slow drip, i am here death shouted,
offering tape to secure tubing, handing
you a standard-issue gown, oversized –
in washed-out blue, for your last journey
under the cold pale of fluorescent light

far from the evergreen life of your redwood forest,
eager and greedy, death snatched
your jazzy PJs, your bling and pedicures,
your journals and pens, your computer and
cat, death tried your dignity and identity
not quickly, no … in a tedious hospital bed,
extending torment, its rough tongue salting
your wounds, death’s hungering, a hunger
for bones, your frail white bones –
but you, in your last exercise of will, thwarted death,
bequeathing your bones to the living sea

 – for Ann Emerson, treasured friend and San Francisco Bay Area poet

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved 

A Tiny Froth of Smile and Grumble

You floated into our lives ~

an autumn leaf
edged in gold,
a tiny froth
of smile and grumble,
a lifetime
of grit and grizzle

Your mind over-larded
……lost
……in the never-land
……of ninety years

such a small body
……such pain

So bravely, little autumn leaf
….you chose
………the wind
…………….on which to slip away,
…..leaving us
the emptiness of your chair
and our wistful hearts

– for Mary Kate, elderly friend and treasured role model

© 2017, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Sometimes we deny the truth that we are all living with dying. The reality may hit us with the death of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a school mate. The more fortunate, like my elderly friend Mary Kate who faced it head-on and chose to stop eating, go peacefully, but for others like my painfully ill friend Ann, my sister who committed suicide, and my mother who feared God’s judgement, that final peace is hard-earned. Tell us about your own experience and thoughts of living with dying. Serious stuff, I know, but part of life.

Leave your poem/s or a link to it/them in the comments section below. All poems shared on theme will be published here next Tuesday. You are encouraged to join in no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. You have until Monday evening, May 7 at 8:00 pm PDT to respond.

If this is your first time participating in Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a short bio (NOT your poetry) and a photograph to thepoetbyday@gmail.com.  These are always published for new contributors by way of introduction.

Thank you! 🙂

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