Death-A Poem

It is purely coincidental that my last post and this one focus on death. Actually, that's probably a lie. When someone you love dies, you will feel that loss for the rest of your life. Obviously the first few hours, days, months... will be horrible. The deepest pain you have ever felt and lived through. But it fades with time. Although you may not believe you will ever wake up and not hurt, you will. It may be years later and out of the blue, you want to cry because you ache so badly for them to be there with you. Just break down in tears in the middle of the grocery store because a little girl that looks like yours is shopping with her mom, and you think, "Why me?, and "What if...?" But the everyday sharp pain, the constant unceasing hurt, there will come a day when it won't hurt quite so much. But it never completely goes away, it just lies dormant, pushed to the back of your mind in the daily struggle to keep going. Because that's what your loved one would want you to do.

Sometimes the reminder that others have shared your pain can come from unexpected sources, like in an assignment for a research class. Today I was trying to find a qualitative research article that reported findings in a nontraditional way. I'm not ready to share with this class the story of my loss, and so I wrote my paper on another topic, but I found a poem that spoke to me.

Lapum, J. (2011). Death-a poem. Qualitative Inquiry. 17(8) 723-724.

the cognitive functioning of a brain Grinds,

to a halt—

like a bronze antique lamp with a dangling chain

gently,

pulled.

everything’s Dark.—

later you’re told

the sun’s rays were glistening, Bouncing

off the snow so bright

it was blinding

and the unmediated way your body

used to move without delay

Interrupted, violently

the habitual

becomes artificially coerced

the way a 15th-century force may try to convert the irreligious and you,

at a standstill.

dormancy,

plagues you

Forcefully

throws you,

to the ground.—

words linger,

lacerate deep

into your spirit

words you felt

—as—so—trite, insipid

because you imagined the day they would come for years

because of the diseased way your mind works

because something locks you into an incessant Waiting,

awaiting

waiting

and then,

its Presence,

brought forth, Absence,

crawls in,

the body

just goes, knowing

what to do, without

conscious neural impulses Telling

eyes what to see

tears to be fleetingly

detained in the presence

of certain people, numbers

to dial, the pine.---

box to choose

hands to shake

people to hug

smiles to fabricate

they stand in front of you speaking and You,

have no idea what they are saying, and you

don't think, of everything

you have lost.

you reserve that,

for days to come when you won't be able to draw your body out from Under

the sheets, no matter how many neural impulses are telling it to move

"get UP!--"

logic's dead.

I lie there

with a stillness that Tares

through me pulverizing everything I've know