Tag Archives: Death of a loved one

Final Message

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Final Message
For Bob

They echo in my memory, those footsteps heard in that early hour the morning after you left.  The creak of the floor board outside my door as I lay rooted to my bed, waiting for the door to open. Years after, that last sound of you loops in my memory.  “Send a sign,” I said, just before I heard your footsteps stir the early morning silence as you shared a sound of you, if not one final look, before you slipped away.

 

For The Sunday Whirl the prompt words are: rooted years footsteps creaks look stir hour loop clock echo before slips

“Solivagant” For Wordle 704

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Solivagant

I draw grief like a scarf around me, swaying from its force.
The clouds spark electricity, rain flooding from its source
like tears of the whole world that are issued from the sky
as thunder growls its protest that you had to die.

Cradling my memories, the secrets of your charm,
it is as though the hazy air shelters me from harm––
wraps around me like a blanket, as I stumble and I list,
recalling as I walk that It was here that we first kissed.

 

–A solivagant is one who walks alone–a solitary wanderer. Sorry for the fancy word, but it just fit.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 704, Apr 27, 2025 the words are:
grief scarf cradle list growl swaying sky force electricity charm secrets

R.I.P.

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R.I.P.

No fall to earth, no plaintive cry.
No false regrets. No ending sigh.

No stab, no arrow and no shot.
All of these things were not her lot.

No accusation of who’s to blame.
No faulty party here to name.

Let mourners mourn if mourn they must,
reduce her body into dust.

They do it all to no avail,
She sees no tears. She hears no wail.

I fear your mourning goes too slow.
Only her body remains below,

for she departed long ago
to melt into that greater flow.

For her, all mortal customs cease,
so let her mourners rest in peace.

Prompts offered at this point are plaintive, accusation, stab,

Coin Flip

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Coin Flip

I always knew that our love would be dicey.
With you sea lion slippery, piquant and spicy,
your imposition into my life
was bound to cause turmoil and possibly strife.

But you brought excitement and offered a piece
of pleasure that lasted devoid of surcease.
Both sides of the coin I was willing to share,
watching the disc as it spun in the air.

Heads you were up and tails you were down—
one side slightly clouded, the other a clown.
The cusp of your mood I could certainly bear
for the promise of future bright times we would share.

Until that last coin toss when you spun away
with no possibility of a next play—
your coin sitting silent upon a high shelf
while I learned to toss the coin for myself.

Prompt words today are sea lion, imposition, piquant and piece.

There is more than one way to show your love. This is amazing.

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Unmarked Grave: NaPoWriMo Day 8,

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Unmarked Grave

The colonel raised me to be great.
As tall as was he—a giant of a man.
Handsome and clever,
a winner of confidence,
I was his favorite son.

I played the role, but lost myself
in one who broke my heart by leaving.
Then, as so many others who fled
during those dangerous times,
my best friend of a lifetime went away,
the two of them leaving me with no support.

I fell victim to the flattery of a tyrant
and chose the wrong side.
Then, knowing my end was near,
I refused to run
but met my fate—
A bullet delivered by that Surafel, a childhood friend
who himself was caught by the Derg and brutally killed.

“Hero of the Revolution” my caption read,
yet they buried us both, as so many others,
in an unmarked grave.
My father wept and grew old,
my whole family collapsing in on itself.

By what miracle,
forty years later
in a land 9,000 miles away,
did my former love
hear my whole story
and write these lines?

For NaPoWriMo Day 8, the prompt was to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write my own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead.

Visitations

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Visitations

He hovers in the corner less frequently now. His face is rarely seen in clouds. He leaves no further messages as the cats walk over my computer keys. It is true that sometimes I catch the scent of him, but it’s not often and not for long. Who knows how long a spirit is tied to earth? The cats sense him sometimes, as do the dogs. The candelabra with its arms arched upwards and the carved wooden Virgin of Guadalupe statue rising up like a head in front of it, in a dark room backlit by kitchen lights, has given me a start now and then; but I soon realize it is not him. None of these places are where I keep him now. It is only long after midnight, when, exhausted, I fall to dreams, that his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream.

 

 

For the dVerse Poets Pub prompt, we are to write a 144 word prose piece that contains the quote “his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream” from Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird.” Read other responses to the prompt HERE.

Quietus

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Version 2

Quietus

As death came to unfold my hand,
you chose to stay and hold my hand,
so that this quietus, meant
to give the steam of life a vent
and calm the mighty wave of life,
was borne with a much lesser strife.

If we are meant to salvage nought
from all the riches life has brought.
(Not one single wild carousal
nor vestige of passion’s arousal.)
If death gives heed to no demand
and no relief from its remand,

then, at least, it seems most fit
that, before our life is quit,
we should have the comfort of
a single gentle press of love.
All, perhaps, that we can stand—
the forgiveness of a loved one’s hand.

Prompts today are hold my hand, carouse, quietus, salvage and wave.

 

Glimpses

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Glimpses

At times you were the problem and at other times the buttress.
At times my lost direction and at other times my compass.
You were my kindred spirit, my teacher and my lover,
and when you went away, I felt that I could not recover.

I saw your face in everything—in rivers and in clouds.
A dozen times, your profile. Your retreating back in crowds.
Love dies but does not vanish. It has a thousand faces
seen at the least likely times in unexpected places.

Facts we can’t face up to in our mutual lives
swarm around in memory in buzzing swarming hives.
Facts as sweet as honey. Facts that sting like bees.
Niggling facts that seize the mind to torture or to tease.

It is a constant truth with love that one will first depart—
an act that seems so far away when love is at its start.
But the truth is always looming. Death will end what we’ve begun.
That inevitable setting of the brightest glowing sun.

Prompts today are things with faces, buttress, kindred or recover.

Ashes

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Ashes

A handful of memories, discounted by time.
Five for a nickel and ten for a dime.
Burned down to ashes, their bodies erased
along with the dreams they achieved or they chased.

How we incorporate thoughts of the past
into our lives may alter and cast
the present in molds that are better off shattered.
Better new memories than those aged and tattered.

Life is for living, so best throw away
corpses of the past that get in the way.
Living is glorious, but it’s not portable.
By merely living, we become deportable.

Thoughts hoarded in dreams should dissolve in the day.
Think too much of the past and it gets in the way.
As hard as it is, it seems that we must
render ashes to ashes, return dust to dust.

 

Prompt words for today are ash, portable, glorious, incorporate and erase.