When you go
When you go,
if you go,
and I should want to die,
there’s nothing I’d be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms
in a trust so gentle
I let the darkening room
drink up the evening, till
rest, or the new rain
lightly roused you awake.
I asked if you heard the rain in your dream
and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.
Edwin Morgan
In October a great Palestininian poet died. Taha Muhammed Ali was self taught and, all his life, earned his living as a shopkeeper in Nazareth. He was witness all of the agonies and upheavals of the time – but but when he thought of his own death dreamt only of sleep and tea. Here’s the poem he wrote:
Tea and Sleep
If, over this world, there’s a ruler
who holds in his hand bestowal and seizure,
at whose command seeds are sewn,
as with his will the harvest ripens,
I turn in prayer, asking him
to decree for the hour of my demise,
when my days draw to an end,
that I’ll be sitting and taking a sip
of weak tea with a little sugar
from my favorite glass
in the gentlest shade of the late afternoon
during the summer.
And if not tea and afternoon,
then let it be the hour
of my sweet sleep just after dawn.
*
And may my compensation be —
if in fact I see compensation —
I who during my time in this world
didn’t split open an ant’s belly,
and never deprived an orphan of money,
didn’t cheat on measures of oil
or violate a swallow’s veil;
who always lit a lamp
at the shrine of our lord, Shihab a-Din,
on Friday evenings,
and never sought to beat my friends
or neighbors at games,
or even those I simply knew;
I who stole neither wheat nor grain
and did not pilfer tools
would ask —
that now, for me, it be ordained
that once a month,
or every other,
I be allowed to see
the one my vision has been denied —
since that day I parted
from her when we were young.
*
But as for the pleasures of the world to come,
all I’ll ask
of them will be —
the bliss of sleep, and tea.
If you’re minded you can hear him read it here. The arabic version is first (worth it just for the sounds and rhythms) and then the translation.
A cortege of daughters
A quite ordinary funeral: the corpse
Unknown to the priest. The twenty-third psalm.
The readings by serious businessmen
One who nearly tripped on the unaccustomed pew.
The kneelers and the sitters like sheep and goats.
But by some prior determination a row
Of daughters and daughters-in-law rose
To act as pall-bearers instead of men.
All of even height and beautiful.
One wore in her hair a black and white striped bow.
And in the midst of their queenliness
One in dark flowered silk, the corpse
Had become a man before they reached the porch
So loved he had his own dark barge
Which their slow moving steps rowed
As a dark lake is sometimes surrounded by irises.
(Elizabeth Smither)
Thank you, Sweetpea, for recommending this wonderful poem.
‘Untimely’ Death
Death knocked on my door –
it was a policeman
come looking for the home of a child found unharmed
amid the wreckage of a highway crash.
I heard him say ‘grandparents’
and my mind saw Grandma long since ready for her death
and Granddad who would never cope alone.
That one word gave me just an instant
to relax amid the swirling building comprehension:
it was not my grandparents, but the child’s, whom death had taken.
The child was my first-born,
returning from her first adventure with my parents.
And in that orphaned moment there opened up a gap
that could have swallowed my existence
were it not for also knowing my beloved child lived.
I never understood the peace that followed:
was it knowing that my parents both had lived their best?
Or that some day life would show me
that the timing did make sense?
Or did it come from looking back
on all the strange events that melded up
to keep our daughter safe?
It did not keep the tears at bay
or push me through the grind of daily living,
but there was peace beyond my understanding
that came upon the grubby wings
of death.
Margie McCallum
Margie has recorded a CD of this and 17 other poems under the title When Death Comes Close. It comes with a booklet and is available from Amazon.
I shall reproduce others of Margie’s poems in the coming days.
