May We Apply Our Hearts Unto Wisdom

Karin Anderson

May We Apply Our Hearts Unto Wisdom

The blue stars of borage flowers

bend their heads

to gaze at the soil;

the bees find them anyway.

My mother and father watch their feet

as they walk.

My father says his spine has forgotten

how to straighten.

My mother says "I fall, I fell, I have fallen"

conjugating the language of infirmity.

My parents follow God's word

in books and prayers,

their gaze turned downwards.

Look up! Look up!

God will find you anyway.

See how the bees dangle

upside down, wings beating in ecstasy?

Flowers sweeten their nectar

when they hear that sound.

I wish your prayers could sweeten

your last days.

Can't you hear God calling you home?

Look up! Look up!

There is glory here, somewhere.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow with the Life Riting Collective on 21 July 2022

All the Unlikely Beauties

Julia Norrish

Is it peculiar

to us big-brained humans to appreciate something most

only in the elongated seconds before

it shatters?

Do other animals

possess such a fickleness? Flagrant, vapid regret

for a thing so different now that it

lies in shards.

Or, is their intelligence

stored in the arms that grasp, fingers that hold, lips that suck,

mouths that breathe knowing each moment for what it is

not was, or could be?

Perhaps life is

in the soft, low, blue blows and swirls a building makes

as the wind fails to pass all the way through it,

crying into the cracks.

"Maybe",

you said, "we die slowly, and

not all at once, sending parts of ourselves ahead

to heaven."

Once whole, it held. Broken, it has no use

though I love it more now.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow with the Life Riting Collective on 21 July 2022

Night Vigil

Heidi van Rooyen

Your last few months

were endless.

In pain, fussy, irritable,

paranoid

you hated your need.

My sister you liked.

No nonsense, physical, practical

she seemed schooled for dying:

fluffed your pillows,

deftly turned you

propped you up

so you looked like yourself.

Grief

ate my strength.

I couldn’t lift you,

but I could sit:

silent and still

create a space

for our pain to spoon.

I’d watch.

Look for signs of my mother.

But find instead

shrunken, frail bones on your bed.

Dark brown eyes deep in their sockets

ready to leave this cervical war.

Beautiful full lips, tongue and mouth

stained with morphine thrush.

Each swallow

a slow painful slide down your throat.

Your only comfort

the old sheepskin blanket

easing the ooze of your bed sores.

It’s the final stretch.

You are back in hospital.

The doctor calls a family meeting.

He says: “This could go on forever or we can help”.

Or words to that effect.

Death talk is never straight.

Someone must always fill in the blanks.

The doctor is asking for permission to kill you.

Morphine via a drip will do the trick.

“It should be quick” he says. “One drip will probably…”

We fumble towards an answer without ever admitting our actions.

It’s decided… I offer… I’m not sure.

My 23-year old self will sit shiva.

Head resting on your bed

I sing your favourite hymns,

murmur prayers.

Eyes lift occasionally to check

your drip, your breathing.

I clasp your elegant,

slim fingers

so much like mine

just browner,

worn with love.

The sun rises on the beach across the road.

Your breathing, shallow, rhythmical.

My voice hoarse

songs and prayers lost in guilt.

The nurse and I on shorthand terms now.

“Another?” she asks. I nod.

It’s close to lunch-time

on the day you were supposed to be dead.

Everyone else has come back.

“Ma still here”, they whisper.

I nod, turn away.

None of us trusting our eyes.

It’s after 3, and a third drip is nearing its end.

I step out to find forgiveness.

In the space I vacate

you finally take your leave.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow with the Life Riting Collective on 21 July 2022