Note from the author: 'This is one of my earlier poems. As you will no doubt realise, the repetition of certain words in this poem are more important to the structure of the poem than the more traditional qualities sought in poem writing. The poem is based upon the idea that when a person is close to death, one's life flashes in one's mind's eye. The repetition helps to hold the poem together whilst creating vivid snapshots of memories that have fixed themselves in the subjects mind.'
Of Love and Death
I remember clutching my
Father’s hand, watching hands
Lowering my mother, into her earthy
Grave, surrounded by bleak stony faces, on
A bleak stony morning. I remember turning away
From the faces, turning away to gaze at the angel with its
Stony face watching over my mother’s earthy grave.
Now whenever I think of my mother, I see only the
Stony eyes and the soft stony smile. As my time
Draws near, surrounded by the bleak stony
Faces of physicians, beneath bleak lights,
I wonder what awaits me in my earthy
Grave. I watch as death approaches and
Draws back his hood, a pale face,
Stony eyes and a soft smile, with
Which he beckons. I say my
Goodbyes to the world, and
Leave it with stony eyes
And a soft stony smile.