Two dead blackbirds either side a door
A mother lying on her bed, who isn’t any more,
A chaos of compassion, a hurricane of fear
A wheel of spinning memories, all too near.
Children plunging knives into vacant souls
Searching for a time when sanity unfolds
Beneath the canopy of prayers and song,
Reality has left the room, reality has gone.
The tiny box arrives in which this person lies
A tiny space, the shortest time, can we really
Morn, is our lifetime long enough
Where endless memories are born.
A lifetime and a family wilting like the flowers,
Generations gather and generations go,
The wind of life blows through us all
The wind is all we know.
Winter is our passing, in spring we are reborn.
Summer is our flowering, but autumn we are
At our best strong and fair and tall,
Then winter comes around again
And winter takes us all.
Caroline Baldock 2019
For, Elena Struthers
Mary Denning, Louis Elton.
Frances’s mother. Godsie Hardwick.