MOVING ON (and sticking around)

It’s still shocking that he’s dead:

thirty years since easy access by phone,

complaints about his domestic scene

filled most of the call, but also

gentle encouragements,

occasional conversations, questions,

observations about his growing puzzlement

with what he heard sitting on the church steps,

trying to reconcile it

with his experience of life

and what his mathematical mind offered

as a different path to truth.

The disruption of his death

is less decisive now, as though

he is present in a quieter variation

of the way he was in life –

occasionally seen or heard,

known to be there behind the stage

as we played our roles.

The shock of his death,

tempered by time, is

a worn pebble in the stream

a different colour now to then.

DAPHNE 7

For those aged 60 or more

This was my name

as an Argonaut aged seven,

confined to the floor

in front of the valve radio

while adventurers inside

visited exotic places,

took risks confronting dangers

in pursuit of the Golden Fleece.

Blue and Purple Certificates, Dragon’s Tooth,

Golden Fleece, Golden Fleece and Bar –

these comprised our weekly logs of progress,

told how we and fellow Argonauts

were travelling. I rarely won a Blue,

never had a contribution read on air.

In the adventurers’ song

I could not understand the words

That dangers lie ahead we know, we know,

so let them lie, their phonetics religious abstractions:

And wrong will bow to right “Jason” cry

Adventure know

Argonauts Row! Row! Row! –

Likewise.

Now all is wrecked – my badge lost,

memories of evenings

listening intently to the radio

eating cheese on toast

have blurred, names gone.

No Jason to guide and fears crowd;

we row at night, destination unknown,

my muscles far from strong.

BIG DEAL

Where was I?

Ah, yes! The anaesthetist’s needle

and her reassurance that soon

I would feel sleepy.

I awoke after six hours

in an unfamiliar bed,

tethered with drips and drains,

monitors, catheters and relatives

anxious to assess if marbles

had been lost.

This was a big deal,

bigger than the scans suggested,

laparoscopes revealing the damaged landscape

of bowel – loops, entanglements and strictures –

in need of individual attention,

amputation, reconnection.

Nor was it over

when the anaesthetist went home,

with bloating, excruciating coughing,

confusing ideas from meds blending

nights and days, two-hourly observations

of temperature, blood pressure,

brief early morning rounds by the surgeons,

feeble washing.

What would it be

instead of waking

to have ‘slipped

the surly bonds of earth’?

If dying is like this, is it a big deal?

You just don’t wake up.