Tagged: death

The Changing of the Leaves

A wave strikes when I am not looking

I miss gazing into your eyes

The water washes over my body then slips away

 

Summer heat hits when I am not looking

I am exhausted; I lost myself in us

An early spring; the rose blooms too soon

 

A storm moves in when I am not looking

Frozen in my steps, the storm is upon me

The thunder roared with staggering sound

 

Rain falls when I am not looking

I am drenched; in what I know I can feel

The rain pounds; the hard ground breaks away

 

Cool night air surrounds me when I am not looking

I am at peace; I embrace my aloneness

The early bird rises with a song of rejuvenation

 

Autumn breeze arrives and I am looking

I let it all go; fate becomes my friend

Beyond words – the changing of the leaves.

 

 

Jackie Blair McSween

THE HAWK DECK


              The silhouette of My Black Cat

is away over the rocks –

              I have brought the wrought iron furniture

black, out of the basement

              & put glass tops

                         upon it.

_

I have poured My White Wine

             & taken a phone call

from My Stepmother in California

            thanking Me profusely

                      for the peach roses

sent in memory of My Father

I was interrupted at this poem

                       by Her, My Stepmother

who says My Painting I gave

                       to My Father

_

which He Hung in

The Big Room in Vermont

behind a wood stove

will be shipped to Me

by Her Grand Daughter

Who’s labouring in bed

                      with twins


Joanna Hyde
February 15th 2012  The Hawk

 

My Father

he slipped away
into that non-judgemental night
he slipped away again

I was not called to his bedside

 there was no face-to-face
just “make me a list”
of the pimping
the using to procure women
the manhandling of his grand daughter
this was not a nice man
yet he shmoosed his way around
into My Child’s Heart
I looked for his praise

 his true nature
came to Me after The Death of My Brother
The Only Son
when the gleam of avarice
came to my father
as he realized he inherited
all My Brother’s property
property which had once belonged
to My Mother’s parents

 I felt helpless
before my father died
I feel helpless now
except that I can write
I can write out my father’s life
and I can
write out my father’s death

 he was one of those children
of the rich and famous
who was a sociopath

 he thrived on the sympathy he got
when he told any and everyone
both his children
were mentally ill

 I thought my parents loved Me
maybe my mother did
but my father did not
he said “I love you”
at long distances

 I will not sink into a depression
over my father
who was not worth
anyone sinking into anything
he was a user, an abuser
a shirker
a jerk

 his faults were glossed over, protected by his family

 he had a hobby of hunting
smooth round rocks
on the shores of Nova Scotia
he didn’t want me walking along the beach
with him

 my father was a sperm donor
at the side of a rock pool
at the base of a waterfall

 that insemination was Me

Joanna Hyde
February 15th 2012   The Hawk

The Death of my Father

 

The Death of My Father in California

did not seem to happen

 

A Single Phone Call

to My Husband’s cell

announced The Death

with no words for Me

 

That was It from The West Coast

 

One Cousin from The East Coast

named My Father

The Eternal Optimist

 

No One has acknowledged

The Delivery of Twelve Orange Roses

backed up by Peach

 

No One has cried

 

Joanna Hyde
February 12th 2012   The Hawk

 

 

 

The Sins of Old Men are Forgotten

“See This Face;  I’m barely here

but I am here –

you will look after Me

& you are so happy

to be looking after me

You will cleanse Me

of My Sins

multitudinous though they were

& you are so happy

to be looking after Me”

A Poem Dedicated to My Recently Deceased Father
written by W. Hunter Blair and Joanna G. H. Blair

February 7th 2012   The Hawk

 

Feathers and Boulders

By Kate Hawkes
Sept. 11, 2011

The diagnosis arrived like a feather
Floated down upon us all
Touched us lightly on the way past our
Stunned minds.

This is not a random metaphor – my father was a bird-man.
He loved them all – little as finches, big as geese.
Birds native to his Australian landscape,
From afar as Africa and Europe

He’d come in from the aviaries,
Feathers perched on his black wavy hair,
Eyes alert,
Singing out the adventures of that day.

After the words stopped vibrating
After we all agreed the meds
Didn’t help
The diagnosis became a boulder.

It wrapped itself around our ankles like a ball and chain,
Sat up on our shoulders until, Atlas like, we couldn’t even shrug.
It pressed on our chests like gravestones.
The diagnosis labeled us all.

The hardest part of the journey,
Most demanding,
Consistently dreadful,
(Full of dread)

Was not the food that couldn’t be swallowed,
The bathroom that promised humiliation and pain
The bed that became a prison even as it was
The only haven.

The hardest part of all was the
simple
act of
letting go.

I felt the ghosts of fear and grief and desire
That came and perched like ravens around his bed
On the days that I sat there as he breathed
Slow and hard or fast and shallow.

One day he asked why the door was open
- it wasn’t.
One day he asked who had left the hall light on
-we didn’t have one.

I saw that his soul was getting ready to let him leave.
My heart broke for his leaving me
But I knew
He had worked so hard.

Worked so long and deep
This last 4 weeks
On things he didn’t even know
Were there to work.

The boulder slowly lifted from his heart
He started to fly, further and further away from us.
For longer and longer flights.
He’d return to visit, perched briefly, full of pain, in this world.

One time he didn’t come back.
And the boulder that rested up on those of us still here,
Pressed in harder, more dreadfully, one more time.
Then it slowly began to weather away.

Right after he was gone I tried to go to the aviaries.
But the birds called his name,
Looked at me as brightly as he did,
Feathers drifted slowly with nowhere to land.

I fled.

Today, 3 years on,
The boulder is just occasional gravel in my shoes,
A small stone that presses on my shoulder.
It is also, oddly, in the collection of heart-stones I gather still.

My father gave me one last gift.
He showed me, through his fear and his struggle
That we have to live as completely
As everything gives us opportunity to do.

It may be the boulder that catches your toe
Or bows your back.
It may be birds that call and sprinkle you with feathers.
You have to do it all.

Before the soul can leave
You will do the work you need to do.
You do it ultimately alone.
Then you can fly.