They give birth astride a grave.
The light gleams for an instant
then it is night once more
From “Waiting for Godot / Samuel Beckett / Pozzo’s Voice
Yes, this is another poem based on the experiences surrounding my brother’s death. These experiences have had great variety over the course of many years. I’ve been waiting to write these pieces since 2010 when Paul died. As I said in a previous post, I misplaced the drafts and notes for these poems for about eight years which may be fortunate; the intervening time gave me the distance I needed to explore the range of meanings that losing Paul presented to me.
Yes, the subject of these poems focuses on “the great matters of life and death,” as the Buddha stated. We don’t mind at all talking about life, but death is nearly a taboo topic. Even people who comfort themselves with the belief that “we don’t really end; something happens afterward,” often skip the dying part, jumping from life to not-life, and missing the part where we come to terms (or not) with aging, sickness and death. Still, even if beliefs in an afterlife are illusions, they are worthwhile, for without such beliefs life is usually tragic and sorrowful. Many people also believe in the importance of rituals surrounding the deaths of our brothers and sisters, and we are careful to observe the etiquette of these rituals.
The poem starts with an image of my brother’s eyes closing, but rapidly expands to discuss all life and its ultimate end. We know death breathes over our shoulders as the inevitable destiny all living beings experience. Still, most people do their best to block out thoughts about this fact. Too painful? Too much of an assault on our core egos? Fear of being meaningless? Plain lack of interest – currently? Sooner, rather than later, death pokes her/his nose into our lives, startling us with its pugnacity and plain bad manners. This is the human condition, and there’s no way around it or through it.
My apologies for offering this poem which is much like a rock band at a funeral.
Close your eyes
Go to sleep my baby brother
Close your eyes
Let your pressured lids gently close
against the precious jelly
against the curtained windows of the soul
Tighter Closer Tighter
darkening swiftly
Tighten Close them Tighten
shadow quickly
Bolt down and tighten, darker still
over eyes shuttered, chilled
Hear final rumbles of synapse-snapping
like sea roaring confined within a cave
Feel others’ foreign fingers tapping
Knowing your vanished life they won’t save
Deeper are the dark waters in the womb
Another kind of prison. Another tomb
One brings joy – the other madness
One brings mourning – the other gladness
Which is which being hard to say
Whether to begin or to slip away
Within one, arriving, circled in sudden light
In the other, swift embrace, then the bite
In both the shade coming to each of us
In one apparent loyalty; the other treasonous
Some dare to preach another kind of life
but after that reported burst of white
surging from the storied tunneled light
Who knows? Is it even ours to say?
whether light or dark has its way
Whether to wear the shoes of living joy
or choose living nobly while being destroyed
Background
Shortly after receiving a call informing me of Paul’s death, I experienced a strong image of his eyes open, then shutting; open and shutting, over and over. Quite naturally, the image found its way into poetic form. Likewise, the Samuel Beckett epigram at the beginning of this post has always intrigued me with its starkness and “just the facts, ma’am” tone.
Some of my readers may be asking, at this time, what my own views on life and death could be. I’ll come clean, and tell you. As suggested in this poem, I see life and death as a balancing act; one is incomplete without the other. I like living as much as the next person, but I’m not averse to death. (I am averse to pain and to losing my mind, although I probably wouldn’t know if the latter occurred.) Based on the choices I’ve made, I have few regrets, and fewer enemies (I think). I am sixty-nine years old, so I’ve had a relatively long run at the whole life thing, done what I wanted to do, and found my way into old age with a modicum of grace – I hope. The bottom line: death intrigues me, and I often study those who have written on the subject. I do not believe in an afterlife, but then, who am I to say? I’m not so sure about the physical, dying process, but we can’t know about that until we find ourselves in the midst of dying, or coming close to the end. But I’m rambling. If any of you out there has a comment or question, I will respond; however, I’m betting no one will take me up on the invitation.
Exploration 1: Is the comparison and contrast between life and death an appropriate subject, or is it too sentimental, pseudo philosophical, or some other approach in bad taste?
Exploration 2: Most of us have experienced the loss of someone dear. How was the death or deaths handled in your experience? Were you satisfied with the choices? If not, what would you have changed, if you could?
Exploration 3: We have great choice in the matter of our beliefs surrounding life and death. When it comes to death, what do you choose to believe, understanding that no one is an expert?
Aye, death it is. I was born among old people. My mother was 'old' by the standards of the day; she was 42 in 1951. My three sisters were all 'old'; the eldest 21 years older, 19 years older and 11 years older, respectively. My dad was the youngest son of his family having been born in 1905 ...
ReplyDeleteHis older brothers, including his identical twin brother--a few minutes his senior-- were alive when I was growing up--if not all of them for long. Their wives were also 'old' and thus were their siblings on their side, so I grew up attending a few funerals as a youth; I was taught this was a normal occurrence, something that happened to us all--sooner or later.
Attending funeral receptions in church basements was a social activity. I was ignorant to the possibility of enjoying sex there--Nay, not with the deceased! What are you thinking? I'm not a necrophiliac! But with some winsome lass who perhaps needed comforting in her time of sorrow. Hey, so I've read! I wouldn't be so callous ... necessarily, but romance blooms in the strangest of circumstances. Again, so I'm told, so I'm told ... it's yust a little levity to ease into more serious talkin', eh.
Death is an ending of one's relationships with mortal beings. Memories exhume them periodically of course, as do photographs--or scars. You have but to look at children to see the one's gene pool carried on in sort of a perpetual reincarnation.
"What a lovely girl. Too bad she has her father's nose .... and feet."
I've been on hand at bed sides when people have taken their last breaths; a privilege my daughter too has shared with the passing of her Aunt and closest friend, Ginger, my middle sister, in the company of Ginger's eldest daughter, Wendy, and also my eldest sister, Ann Marie. Solemn events all.
Then the lights go out and it's oblivion. Pain ceases. Synapses short circuit. Everything shuts down. You flat-line. Time stands still for a millisecond--and on it goes again. Zippity pop.
Sickness, old age, and death – the three constants if we live long enough – so says the Buddha. Aging is not for sissies, I say (borrowed from a forgotten source, but I think it was on a poster somewhere). How fortunate you are that you were introduced to death at a young age, and that you were schooled in its ways as “normal” and to be expected. Healthy! Sounds like you are well educated in the great matters of life and death.
DeleteI enjoy your “levity.” Always a true pleasure. However, me thinks thou dost protest too much. A cockroach in the corner I would like to have been as you scoured the church basement for that one winsome lass of like mind and like . . ..
As for the boogie person (gender neutral like The One), and what or what does not come after, I came across a notion that we are not really dead until no one remembers us at all, i.e., everyone who ever knew us is quite likely dead themselves. No memories extant = no more person. Pets fall prey to the same. The gene pool carries on, no doubt, but that doesn’t mean the memory gene(s) is loaded with our precise and personal data.
Your last two lines are real keepers. Shakespearean, if I would say. Macbeth had it right Then, there’s Lady M’s suicide which is a whole other kettle of poetry and play.
Thanks for reading, and esp. for commenting.
From Macbeth spoken by Macbeth
PS: Sam Beckett said, "You don't suppose we're starting to mean something, do you."
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.