“There is only one law in the universe that never changes– that all things change, and that all things are impermanent.” Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The last Wednesday Writing Prompt, A Hunger For Bone, May 2, was on living with dying. We’re often in denial about this constant in our lives. The reality may hit us with the death of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a school mate. Today seven poets share their experiences and observations in writing that is honest, intimate and moving. You may find you need a tissue or two.
You will not fail to be touched by the sincerity of newcomers Sharmila Pupu Mitra and Marta Pombo Sallés (a warm welcome to both) and with the work of our “old timers” Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Kakali Das Gosh, Shiela Jacob and Sonja Benskin Mesher. Thanks to each for their willingness to touch our hearts and share their work.
Join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about the love of reading and writing poetry, sharing your work, exercising the writing muscle and getting to know poets who may be new to you.
SHARMILA MITRA aka SHARMILA PUPU MITRA was born in the beautiful small town, Jalpaiguri, in North of West Bengal, India. She teaches English and is a poet. She tells us she is in love with words, and spends her time thinking how to use words to express her most intimately felt experiences. Her journey has been rough. Sharmila lives in her ancestral home in Kolkata, with her elderly mother and her rescued fur children. Life is a kaleidoscope to her.
Last Moments
Last moments together
peace of mind and spirit
magic energy flowing
my hand holding yours.
The pain has vanished
now sleep peacefully
take in all this love
I am giving you.
No grass in the park
no plants in the lake
though colorful flowers
give hope for your leaving.
The sculpture remains,
see the confident gaze
how she stands resolute
how she tells life to go on.
MARTA POMBO SALLÉS is a German and English teacher working in a high school near Barcelona. Marta has taught both languages since 1990. She says that at work and in her free time she feels the need to create things.
Marta was also featured on The Poet by Day yesterday in the postPoets Helping Poets.
CATALÀ: Hola a tothom, em dic Marta Pombo Sallés i sóc professora d’alemany i d’anglès en un institut a prop de Barcelona. Ensenyo aquestes dues llengües des de l’any 1990. Tant a la meva feina com en el meu temps lliure sento la necessitat de fer coses creatives.
turnstile
as my friend tom
grappled with another uncle’s succumb
to heart diease
he emailed an assertion
i will not forget:
“we’re all chunking up
to the turnstile.”
as my friend jeff
composed his last message,
and anti-seizure medication
did its eldrich thing,
on many screens in many homes
a horribly cheery woman’s voice
told listeners that use of this medication
may lead to suicidal thoughts
or actions.
as another day meets its midnight turnstile
the probability that turnstile day
for me
is imminent
is incrementally higher than it was
24 hours prior,
it took a year for dna confirmation.
there were a scattering of bones
and a skull
missing the lower mandible.
the county called her
and she came down
from the high country
and at her request
they showed her
her son’s remains.
soundlessly weeping, smiling,
she carefully lifted
the bleached brainpan
and looked into the sockets
of the skull of her son.
she ran her finger over
the smooth cool top
and murmured his name.
she kissed her finger
and pressed it gently
against the skull-top.
she wanted the bones as is
but the law of the land said no.
they cremated
the sun-sterilized bones
and gave her the ash-filled urn.
All house mirrors have been removed.
I sit on her soft bed, rest an arm
on a spare pillow. Mum’s pillows
stacked behind her as we watch a
tv placed where her dress mirror stood.
Once she cried as her hair fell out.
She cried as she gained each pound weight
because she takes the chemicals
to stop her dying, stop the spread.
Once she was ‘petite’, now Mum’s fat
jowls, bingo wings slop on the bed.
Together we watch lithe bodies,
sharp muscle tone dash for the end.
Her home is spotless, a show home.
Every day we polish, scrub,
vacuum, she wants it welcoming.
She nods off half way through the
100 metres, I soft clap
the winner as she would have done.
I remember good times, and smile
at her laughter, gleam in her eyes
when she sees another winner
dash over the race finish line.
Meanwhile, she looks forward to Oakwell,
a new fan of Barnsley FC.
I never go as I don’t like
football, regret my selfishness
and time not enjoying her life.
She will sit in her hired wheelchair
yell and clap at their confidence,
vitality, their will to win.
Snowfall churned the wind
Gone through his ashes
I called him
None answered
The ridges through back the echoes
Of his dying footsteps
A balefire lighted in
That heath
Recalled his funeral
His white visage
Shivered fingers
Languid cheeks
Still stare at me
Awaiting for the
Undesirable last breath
On his steadfast .
After paramedics found you
I counted lost hours
you’d spent alone
becoming-so it seemed-
more and more dead
as the sun rose,
curtains stayed closed
and your telephone rang and rang.
A nurse would have seen
blue lips, felt no pulse,
pulled the emergency cord
but you refused another
hospital stay, worn out,
at ninety, by the chafe
of cannulas, sticking plasters,
starched white linen.
You slept, one final night,
in your own double bed;
lay, pyjama-clad,
beneath a brown blanket,
the green quilt
you still called an eiderdown
and pink polyester sheets
blush-bright on your body’s chill.
For Ann who died of a rare cancer of the bone and for Mary Kate who chose the day and the way.
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
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.
A refined though modest collection this week in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Fishing Trip (beginner’s luck), April 25. Thanks to intrepid poets: Gary Bowers, Frank McMahan, and Sonja Benskin Mesher for coming out to play. Bravo! and thanks to Sonja for generously sharing her illustrations as well. Enjoy their work and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
declaration of victory
looks easy i said
to my thuggish older brother and his foppish friend fred
bet I can do better
gimme a try
how much? said the brother
and how much better? said the fred
all I got i replied
twelve cents
and I will hit
not just the tree trunk
but the knot on the left
seven feet up
from twice as far away
they did not want to
but the twelve cents
and curiosity
got them
reluctantly fred handed me the slingshot
and i picked a round little rock
and backed off another ten yards
here is where the quantum multiverse steps in
in one universe i aimed at my brother and hit him in the side
in another i ran off with the slingshot laughing
and there are many others
that would have gotten
the crap beat out of me
by the two thugs
but in this ‘verse
I aimed at the knot
and almost hit it
solidly thwicking the trunk
as i somehow knew i would
and coughed up the twelve cents
two dollars safe in another pocket
and declared victory
I so wanted to try that slingshot
and twelve cents was a small price
for that thrill
and I had done better with my first shot
than they
with all of theirs
An island without water. We rose just
after dawn, this summer of endless sun
and strawberries, unmoored the boat, began
to work the oars. Steady lift splash pull,
lift splash pull,’ till we could drift mid-fjord.
One simple line and spinner. Wait as sweat
dries; salt, silence then sharp tug, resistance
against the filament drawn in. First fish!
squirming black silver grey. And on and on
as mackerel filled the boat around our feet.
Much easier this than working out love’s
complications, shimmer and wonder
lifting me beyond youth’s self-absorptions.
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” Madeleine L’Engle … perhaps one can even say this applies to poetry.
Tuesdays are among the most popular days for people to visit the The Poet by Day and that’s because of the quality of work our poetry community produces and the fascination I believe we all have with the variety of reactions to a prompt. Such delight. So here today are the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, April 18, The Taste of Baklava.
Thanks to these talented, often visionary, and intrepid poets for coming out to play: Irene Aaron (a.k.a. Irene Emanuel), Paul Brooks, Sheila Jacob, Frank McMahan, Sonja Benskin Mesher and Pleasant Street. The artful Sonja has shared her illustrations as well.
Do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome – encouraged – to participate no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. Meanwhile, read on, enjoy, and be inspired.
RAINY DAY COMFORT
Afternoon rain,
steam on tar;
liquid leaves litter rain-sparkled grass.
School-shoe leather
splashing sweet-water puddles,
spraying the grey air with promise.
Homeward bound
after school, comfort food
beckons with tempting smells.
Batter on griddle,
sizzling pancakes
drowned in farm butter and maple syrup.
Olfactory senses
unlock fragrances of
security and warmth,
a taste of childhood days.
*A special welcome today to Irene Aaron, new to Wednesday Writing Prompt. Irene’s pen name is the lovely Irene Emanuel. Irene didn’t have a chance to email her bio and photo. When she does, I’ll add it to this post as is tradition with writers new to The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt.
My Mam’s Spice
Our home were spiced up,
when she were well.
Mam put wooden pots
of her favourite fragrances
on the tiled hearth,
strung garlands
on the hallway walls.
Allspice, cedar wood shavings
cinnamon bark and cassia bark
cloves, cypress wood shavings
fennel seed, incense-cedar
wood shavings, jasmine flowers
and oil, jujube blooms,
juniper wood shavings.
I thought it magic,
‘ cause it didn’t rot,
lavender leaves,
lemon balm leaves,
lemon peel, marjoram leaves,
mignonette leaves, mint leaves,
mugwort, orange peel,
sweet citrus infused all rooms,
pelargonium leaves, pinyon pine
shavings and cones, rose flowers,
hips, rosemary leaves,
even on the gusty winter day mam died,
and the sharp tangs were stench
and the pots were emptied,
garlands binned, odours dissipated
from rooms but not memory.
relevant part of a map.
When he gets lost, he stops,
at the entrance to the busiest junction,
sometimes, before a roundabout,
and unfolds a view of the world
to its fullest extent to find his way.
Perhaps, at work when he changes
one tiny part of the system he traces
its effect on a detailed draughted whole diagram
of council offices, hospitals
or nuclear subs where he has installed
new heating waste management services.
And I at work or home cursed with the same
need for thorough deliberation,
find bosses, wives and workmates sigh
at my slow, detailed examination
of an issue, that had I rushed,
as when angry, only find confusion.
My dad and I bring the whole going on
to a brief stop as others
who wish to get on, hoot, cringe,
whistle and toot their dismay.
We ignore them all to, quietly,
stubbornly, slowly map our way.
We lean into a breeze skittering
off the hills, send bubbles
soaring through plastic rings.
Our grandsons cheer-
their turn next and we caution
mind you don’t trip
don’t run into the road
but they’re sure-footed, stay
close, race one way then another
across an ellipse of lawn.
* * * * *
I recall dandelion-clocks
in a long ago garden.
puff-breath count the seeds
watch them fly tell the time
one o’clock two o’clock
tick-tock mind the nettles
rub a dock leaf on stings
hold a buttercup under your chin
loop a daisy-chain over your wrist
* * * * *
I feel a child’s arms around
my waist, kiss his blond head.
His brother runs to me:taller,
raven-haired, I hug them both,
wipe soap-sticky hands
and the four of us chase
fresh bubbles, catch some
on our palms, pop the highest
with our fingertips, let others melt
into trodden tufts of grass.
I didn’t belong there and I knew it
how you were not mine yet
and she did not know you were there
with me
letting something grow
that was for keeps
in time
keeping time, and
holding on tightly
so that no one could sever our bond
looking upwards
that fierce green streak
putting a stamp on it
on us
and for once
I believed in signs
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” Madeleine L’Engle … perhaps one can even say this applies to poetry.
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