Feb 2023
end of life's road
the soul lands
on its own shadow
*
My Da was dying in Nass hospital and I was told to go away for a while so I walked to the little wildlife park nearby which had lots and lots of swans who sat on the benches and wouldn't let humans sit on them. You can just about see on the left hand side of the photo a few about to 'busk' as they believed I was usurping their territory .Then suddenly this gull swept down and followed the line of the road to come full stop in front of me as if confronting me with matters of life and death. I managed to get a photo of it just before it landed on its own shadow.
"Hi!" it said as if talking to humans was neither here not there....I'm the neighbour psychopomp.. I've come to guide your father's soul!" In my great grief a talking gull was neither here nor there as my father's life met its end. "Does it have to be this way?" I asked in my anguish. "It does...." whispered the seagull "...it does."
There is a photo of me and my Da heading off to Sunday mass in our Sunday best. I am holding his hand and so proud that this man is my Da and totally in love with the moment. In mass we will sing Be Thou My Vision and it will be an epiphany. This is the moment I will be remembering when the doc throws us out for a while and I go out to the nearby park. Everything I saw and there was nothing much to see...******* and shadows....joggers and swans and a dog that could not be seen. The dog was in a housing estate a good bit away but his bark was right beside you. A swan was sitting on a park bench and wouldn't let anyone else sit on it. The music leaking from the jogger's headphones and she trundled by me in pink spandex was...The Little Drummer Boy. This in March? When the doc let me back in Da wanted to know everything I had seen down to the littlest detail. He was able to tell me that when a swan goes loco with you...it is called busking. He was always able to tell me such tiny bits of knowledge. Even the shadow on the ***** grass got gulped down by his mind. Only after did I realise that all these details of things he knew he would never see again. They had become precious...even the mud...even the rain. In my mind when he was dying I would sing to him all the songs and hymns I sang with him in all the different Da's he was.
The old Irish version of the hymn says it all for me...
Be thou my father, be I thy son.
Mayst thou be mine, may I be thine.
Rop tussu m'athair, rob mé do mac-su;
rop tussu lem-sa, rob misse lat-su.
Such intense love....an immensity held in these scrappy details of a nothing day.
Be thou my father, be I thy son.
Mayst thou be mine, may I be thine.
Rop tussu m'athair, rob mé do mac-su;
rop tussu lem-sa, rob misse lat-su.
BE THOU MY VISION
He drinks in
my vision
of a world
contained in a matter
of minutes
all that can be seen
in this here
& now.
An ordinary world
of the mundane moment
joggers and *******
running side by side
somewhere the distant barking
of an invisible dog.
Litter being taken
for a walk
by a skittish wind
changing direction on a whim.
A swan
sitting on its own
on a park bench
gazing at the water.
My Da gulps down
each happenstance
each moment
of unimportance
knowing he will never
see such things again.
The ordinary made precious
in the dying light.
Each meagre moment
bereft of beauty.
Soon he will have
the Last Rites
and even this story
will be lost.
But now he listens
almost greedily
as I tell of a shadow
scattered upon the grass
as if it existed in
a dimension of its own.
He can almost taste
the sunlight.
See the wind
hustle the leaves.
How beautiful
is mud?
What a thing
is rain?
How wondrous
a footfall
opening up the silence
flowering into
the ragged breathing
of an obese jogger
her earphones
leaking Christmas music.
A Christmas long gone
that will not come for him again.
Father become child
wanting the again and again
of this fading
“Now.”
Spring in all its glory
shyly approaching
the dying
of his day.
the soul lands
on its own shadow
*
My Da was dying in Nass hospital and I was told to go away for a while so I walked to the little wildlife park nearby which had lots and lots of swans who sat on the benches and wouldn't let humans sit on them. You can just about see on the left hand side of the photo a few about to 'busk' as they believed I was usurping their territory .Then suddenly this gull swept down and followed the line of the road to come full stop in front of me as if confronting me with matters of life and death. I managed to get a photo of it just before it landed on its own shadow.
"Hi!" it said as if talking to humans was neither here not there....I'm the neighbour psychopomp.. I've come to guide your father's soul!" In my great grief a talking gull was neither here nor there as my father's life met its end. "Does it have to be this way?" I asked in my anguish. "It does...." whispered the seagull "...it does."
There is a photo of me and my Da heading off to Sunday mass in our Sunday best. I am holding his hand and so proud that this man is my Da and totally in love with the moment. In mass we will sing Be Thou My Vision and it will be an epiphany. This is the moment I will be remembering when the doc throws us out for a while and I go out to the nearby park. Everything I saw and there was nothing much to see...******* and shadows....joggers and swans and a dog that could not be seen. The dog was in a housing estate a good bit away but his bark was right beside you. A swan was sitting on a park bench and wouldn't let anyone else sit on it. The music leaking from the jogger's headphones and she trundled by me in pink spandex was...The Little Drummer Boy. This in March? When the doc let me back in Da wanted to know everything I had seen down to the littlest detail. He was able to tell me that when a swan goes loco with you...it is called busking. He was always able to tell me such tiny bits of knowledge. Even the shadow on the ***** grass got gulped down by his mind. Only after did I realise that all these details of things he knew he would never see again. They had become precious...even the mud...even the rain. In my mind when he was dying I would sing to him all the songs and hymns I sang with him in all the different Da's he was.
The old Irish version of the hymn says it all for me...
Be thou my father, be I thy son.
Mayst thou be mine, may I be thine.
Rop tussu m'athair, rob mé do mac-su;
rop tussu lem-sa, rob misse lat-su.
Such intense love....an immensity held in these scrappy details of a nothing day.
Be thou my father, be I thy son.
Mayst thou be mine, may I be thine.
Rop tussu m'athair, rob mé do mac-su;
rop tussu lem-sa, rob misse lat-su.
BE THOU MY VISION
He drinks in
my vision
of a world
contained in a matter
of minutes
all that can be seen
in this here
& now.
An ordinary world
of the mundane moment
joggers and *******
running side by side
somewhere the distant barking
of an invisible dog.
Litter being taken
for a walk
by a skittish wind
changing direction on a whim.
A swan
sitting on its own
on a park bench
gazing at the water.
My Da gulps down
each happenstance
each moment
of unimportance
knowing he will never
see such things again.
The ordinary made precious
in the dying light.
Each meagre moment
bereft of beauty.
Soon he will have
the Last Rites
and even this story
will be lost.
But now he listens
almost greedily
as I tell of a shadow
scattered upon the grass
as if it existed in
a dimension of its own.
He can almost taste
the sunlight.
See the wind
hustle the leaves.
How beautiful
is mud?
What a thing
is rain?
How wondrous
a footfall
opening up the silence
flowering into
the ragged breathing
of an obese jogger
her earphones
leaking Christmas music.
A Christmas long gone
that will not come for him again.
Father become child
wanting the again and again
of this fading
“Now.”
Spring in all its glory
shyly approaching
the dying
of his day.
