Let the music stop
The ghastly clamour cease
For one moment.
Put down the bow
Untune the string
Muffle drum and dampen keys.
Let stillness reign.
Let silence hang.
Erase flesh and beating heart
Chill the blood which throbs in vain.
Throw down the baton
And mark today
With a stop.
Put in the rest notes
Count the beats
I am tired, and in want of sleep.
Four beats of stillness
Let my mind be freed
A two-quavered hiatus
Let shattered body heal
A dotted breve
To solidify my soul
And into the mute void
The lion's roar.
A new sound.
Listen.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A Grief Dismissed
I've a less than 48-hour old grief. A fresh wound, but old enough that I can begin to write about it.
I skirt carefully around my grief, poking it a little, making concentric circles, closer and closer in, until I stare at it, peering at its form. But it's only for a few minutes, before I have to withdraw.
The trouble with grief is that of course one can't just look at it. One doesn't walk around it as if at a museum, studying an exhibit encased in a glass box. Grief is a writhing, living, growing thing. One has to handle it, touch it, throw it about.
Only, it's bigger than me, more like a body of water. I have to enter into its silent immensity. I hold myself there, forcing myself to sit still in its centre. I can only manage a few moments. Like holding your breath under water. Grief is that split second just before you have to resurface: your lungs are almost out of air, but still holding out, and there's a panicked moment of paralysis, before your legs wake up, and propels you out of the water.
It's momentary, quick jerks of intense anguish. Impossible to sustain, even if I am willing to sustain them. Very quickly my mind turns to self-mockery, or tries to rationalise the situation. Reason acts as rudder, pushing distance between me and memory. Away from raw pain.
It's all relative, I know. I've just read the blogs of two families who have lost loved ones. A wife and a son, both to cancer. What do I know of such loss? What is my "loss" in comparison? A loss of future hope, a mirage of a dream. Nothing but foolish musings for addled brains.
I skirt carefully around my grief, poking it a little, making concentric circles, closer and closer in, until I stare at it, peering at its form. But it's only for a few minutes, before I have to withdraw.
The trouble with grief is that of course one can't just look at it. One doesn't walk around it as if at a museum, studying an exhibit encased in a glass box. Grief is a writhing, living, growing thing. One has to handle it, touch it, throw it about.
Only, it's bigger than me, more like a body of water. I have to enter into its silent immensity. I hold myself there, forcing myself to sit still in its centre. I can only manage a few moments. Like holding your breath under water. Grief is that split second just before you have to resurface: your lungs are almost out of air, but still holding out, and there's a panicked moment of paralysis, before your legs wake up, and propels you out of the water.
It's momentary, quick jerks of intense anguish. Impossible to sustain, even if I am willing to sustain them. Very quickly my mind turns to self-mockery, or tries to rationalise the situation. Reason acts as rudder, pushing distance between me and memory. Away from raw pain.
It's all relative, I know. I've just read the blogs of two families who have lost loved ones. A wife and a son, both to cancer. What do I know of such loss? What is my "loss" in comparison? A loss of future hope, a mirage of a dream. Nothing but foolish musings for addled brains.
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