Behind the Wall

Behind the Wall

What is the story you have never told? That is the one which will free you to tell all the rest. 

So the advice goes. I think it’s true. 

I know which story I have never told. 

And certainly it’s true that I never can seem to get on with telling the rest. (I make abortive beginnings at times, but they fizzle out.)

I don’t even have to make that story public once it is written, I tell myself. I just have to write it. Just for me, to free me.

I am 78. In less than two months I’ll be 79. Surely I can do it by now? After all, it was 36 years ago! (36 years ago … and yesterday.)

I imagine myself starting to write. The first sentences form in my mind.  They are graceful and easy.

But then the wall rises in front of me again. It is high and wide and very thick. It is made of bluestone blocks. It is topped by rolling scrolls of barbed wire, razor sharp.  

It does not exist physically any more. The whole place was torn down years ago, to make way for a new suburb. (I wonder how people live there, sleep there. Surely they are troubled by ghosts?  Surely they must be possessed by rage and tears, violence and dread, the deepest despair.)

The wall has gone. It is all past history. But still in my mind it rises up. Tell my story? Your story? Our story? It is enough that we lived it. It’s no-one else’s business. 

Except that we wrote it in poems, and sometimes I still do … obliquely. We wrote it in letters too, but they were all burned a long time ago.

I never watch shows set in prison, no matter how good they are said to be. They might be too real. Or not real enough. Either way, I don’t need to look.

Your face is before me, forever young. You were not yet 25 when you said goodbye – to me and everyone.

You smile at me. Your eyes are clear, and very blue. Yes of course I cry … still … again … a little bit. 

I know what we said and wrote to each other. I remember it all. 

In response to Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ The Wall

The Farewell

The Farewell

Afterwards I photographed roses

in my friend Maureen's garden,

drank black coffee on her deck, 

and showed her my new Tarot pack

(called Everyday Witch)

because it's light-hearted.

            *********

It was a kindly Memorial.

We were glad we went.

The cemetery was peaceful

with its lawns and trees

and flowers growing,

and the flowers people brought.

Maureen laid our bunch, gently, 

under a spreading tree

in the shade.

I hugged various old friends

I hadn't thought to see there.

Penelope's reach

into the community

was one-on-one with each of us.

None of us needed to say 

anything to each other – 

knowing the depth of love

in every connection with her:

impossible for anything less.

Death makes us all poets! Many

had written poems for her

after she died. They were read.

Several of us wept. Yet all of us had

certainty that she was now

with God, and happy.

When we toasted her,

we instinctively raised our glasses 

high, in celebration, to the sky.

There was no anguish,

even though we so loved her.

(There was some shock. Too young ...

and doesn't yet feel gone.)

We sang, we reminisced,

standing or sitting around

as the sun grew warmer

and the morning moved on.

A morning in early Spring,

in a glade. A good time, good place
for one who had given herself 

the email name of Artemis – 
who, wise and deep as she was,

kept the girl in herself alive.

And now she's dead? 
Twenty-odd years

and at least one other lifetime 

of friendship suddenly over? No. 

Never have I felt more assured

that the soul is eternal.

            *********

Knowing her life might not be long

she had written us all a letter,

trusted to a friend who was executor,

for when this time came:

telling us that our love

gave her power to see the light.

It goes both ways, Penelope –

you in whom we, fortunate, rejoice!

I took this photo back in 2001, but life didn't greatly alter her appearance. 

A Way of Understanding

A Way of Understanding

Deep silence in the mind is a void,

we are told – but I see it more

as a tunnel, a conduit

taking awareness out

to meet Larger Mind

('universal

consciousness')

and merge

with.


Another nonet for Fussy Little Forms at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Keeping Watch

Keeping Watch

In the hushed solitude of late night –

communing with moonlight and owl,

drifting clouds, oceans of stars –

I gaze down through the pane

at our little street

in its calm, still,

slumbering,

silent

dark.

A nonet for Fussy Little Forms at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Nautilus

Nautilus

Curving

gradually

through pearly

and nearly translucent

fragile white chambers which once

contained a living, moving creature of the sea,

culminating in a spiral not golden but logarithmic –

this beautiful shell is dead,

a lovely skeleton

ghostly white,

unearthly

pure.

A second 'fib' or fibonacci poem written for Camera FLASH! at 'imaginary garden with real toads', this one word-based rather than syllable-based.

Shell image by Edward Weston. Fair Use.

Oh, Sweet Mystery

Oh, Sweet Mystery

That

coil:

shell, ear,

cochlea,

unfurling fractal

or visible Mandelbrot set –

is it the building-block of life

(blueprint, pattern, form)?

Symmetry

attracts 

be-

lief.

A double fibonacci (or 'fib') written for Camera FLASH! at 'imaginary garden with real toads', where we are invited to be inspired by this Shell image, which is by Edward Weston and available for Fair Use. (This poem is in the original fibonacci form, based on syllable count.)

The Arrival of Spring

The Arrival of Spring

for Penelope

We stood on the steps of the temple

in white tunics edged with gold.

We saw this as we worked together

reading energy, sitting on the floor

of that big room, where I used to live.

We saw lionesses prowling, 

loved and tame, in deep caverns,  

their padded feet threading 

through sand-coloured pillars.

People filled the atrium, looking up,

awaiting the High Priestess 

and the ceremony 

for the arrival of Spring. 

Young priestesses, glad and proud,

we stood at the top of the steps

either side, like twins.

                 *********

Now the candle I burn for you

sits on my Egyptian altar – 

Sekhmet one side, Thoth the other.

I have said the Prayer for the Dead,

which my friend the Hermetic Magician

taught me long ago.

(He, like others dear to me, 

died as Winter began to turn. 

And here in this country, now,

today is the first of Spring.)

As I spoke the words, I thought:

She cannot have far to go

in her journey towards God!

I thought you might merge at once,

and seemed to see that, you becoming

white light, radiant, the edges blurring

as you melt, fully absorbed

into that vaster light.

Sharing this with the latest Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.