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OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

0 posted 2006-01-01 06:07 PM

This is a suite of 3 poems:

You're Not Coming Back

There Must Be Some Mistake
1 January 2006

. . . what I cannot grasp is
that
you’re
not
coming
back
and that you are not
somewhere celebrating New Year
with your family
and that your hardships and sorrows
aren’t going to disappear
into the long happy life
that you deserve
and that you won’t be
lighting up the office
with your smiles and your cleaning
on Mondays and Thursdays
and that you won’t ever again
bleach the inside of my puppy-cup
sparkling white
with pride to widen my smile
and that your family
is in darkness
since your light went out
and that our tears
and our hearts scraped raw
won’t bring you back
and that you’re not coming back
and
that
you’re
not
coming
back
not
ever -

not
coming
back

not
coming
back . . .

there must be some mistake . . .

please will somebody tell me
that there is some mistake?

Too Little Too Late
1 January 2006

“There is nothing more we can do” we thought,
but the truth is
that we didn’t care enough
to take the time
to know that wasn’t true
and to fathom out a way
and now you are dead
and now there
really is
nothing we can do
to bring you back.

So, my good friend,
in essence,
I killed you -
along with others, yes –
but they are not my concern.
I could have prevented your death,
or at least postponed it
and enhanced your quality of life,
but I didn’t see it soon enough
and so you are dead,

but, it’s not so much the guilt
that strangles my breath.
It’s knowing that
you have lost
your life
and we have lost
you.

I Didn't Say Goodbye
1 January 2006

I was on leave
and so I didn’t know
you had phoned the office
to say that you were
going home to the farm
to die.
I wish I had known
because I would have phoned you
to say goodbye.

I wish I had phoned you sooner
to find out if you were feeling better.
I wanted to, but decided to
speak to you after Christmas.

Instead I sent you a Happy Christmas SMS
8 days after you had died.
Your family must have thought
that the office didn’t care enough about you
to tell the whole office.
However, I was on leave
and Julia wanted to phone me
but the others didn’t want to upset me
while I was on leave.

I popped into the office three days
after Christmas
and Adri broke it to me gently,
but this is not gentle news.
I sent your family an SMS
to explain.

I wish I had
at least
given you
and me
my goodbye.

- Owl

Martie

Moderator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-09-21

Posts 28049
California

1 posted 2006-01-01 06:42 PM

OWl...so sad and hard to deal with the not knowing and not saying goodbye. Don't blame yourself, this person would probably not want you to..really!

littlewing
Member Rara Avis

since 2003-03-02

Posts 9655
New York

2 posted 2006-01-01 07:01 PM

Gosh, Diana . . .

I too feel such ways when one passes beyond my control, especially when it is out of your reach, as this was.

Try and let the guilt go . . . a far better place, to me, is going home.

I wrote this - this year when someone extremely close to me passed, was like my Dad,
you could say WAS my Dad and I thank you for allowing me to repost it here,
in hopes it may help you to feel that you are not alone in these thoughts, and I am so sorry.

It can be disputed,
that the dying breath
of man
is composed solely
of flushed, angelic breeze.

Not unlike
a delicate touch,
traversing each curve of hip
and thigh,
while lying, entwined
beneath a cool summer’s morn’.

It can be disputed,
that such temperate breeze
resembles the joy felt
upon hearing an infant’s first wail.

It has been proven,
that one’s last breath
is nothing more
than carbon dioxide
and nutrients, dispelled.

I have seen more death than life.

I embody the bile
rising from the city’s sewers.

Vomited,
from the cracked and bleeding mouths
of our forefathers.

The gutters ejaculate, stinging my skin,
pricking, as needles.

No matter how I try,
I cannot be scrubbed clean.

I dispute,
that death is anything pleasant.

For the living.

I have seen more death than life.

And I braid its bony fingers,
within my own.

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

3 posted 2006-01-02 01:20 AM

Thank you so very much Martie.  It is very kind of you (and comforting) to say that I am not responsible for her death.  However, facts are facts, and although there are two others who were more responsible, that is not the point.  Her death, though so very unexpectedly soon, was unnecessary.  It could have been prevented, or postponed for a long time.  Of course if we had realised more and sooner, we would have done more.  For a start, I didn't really NEED to have bought my laptop.  I would have had more money to help then.  We didn't realise exactly what was happening.  But that is no excuse.  We should have.

Thank you for your very beautiful, comforting and sensitive poem.  I am going to read it often.

Princess (her name, not her title) was the cleaner in our office, and she died unexpectedly on 17 December 2005 at the age of 36.  She would have been 37 on 13 January 2006.  She missed Christmas and New Year and the rest of her young life.  Her baby was born dead a year ago, it seems as a result of the inefficiency of the hospital staff.  Her health problems started then, one after another.  A couple of months before her death, one of her legs started swelling.  The doctors gave her one set of tablets after another and wouldn’t give her a referral to a hospital until shortly before her death.  One doctor told my boss that she refused to have certain tests done.  In retrospect, it seems as though she believed that she had AIDS and that she gave up holding on to life and felt that our advice wouldn’t do anything for her.  We guess that there was some residual infection after her baby was born dead and that that caused the problems that the clinic doctors and the hospital couldn’t cure and didn’t care enough to try hard enough.   Although I researched and put a plan in place to collect a monthly quota of tablets from Ballito Bay and to finance them, if it should be found that she did have AIDS, she died before I could implement it.  Although we believe that it was the infection that killed her, she may have had AIDS which would have exacerbated the situation.

- Owl

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

4 posted 2006-01-02 02:34 PM

I am so sorry to hear that you too, are haunted...word fail me, Owl.

Just know that I understand.

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

5 posted 2006-01-02 03:03 PM

Thank you so much, Serenity Blaze. You are a good friend. There are so many lovely people on this forum. I really feel among friends here.

- Owl

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

6 posted 2006-01-02 03:12 PM

littlewing, I don't see my reply to you. I don't know whether it will still show. I thought it was in the same one as my reply to Martie, but perhaps I did it separately. I know I typed it in here, but perhaps my phone voucher ran out at the crucial moment and I thought it had gone in.

If it comes in, I will ask a moderator to delete this one.

Thank you for your stunning poem, honest to the core, in which you held nothing back. You and Martie and Serenity Blaze have all shown your sincere support each in your own inimitable way and it means so much to me. I am glad that none of you said that I am not to blame. Like you all, my son didn't either. Paradoxically, that makes your support feel so much more real and it makes it so much easier for me to see that you all understand.

- Owl

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