Adar

Rosh Hodesh Adar – and you chose to die

On a day of bright sunlight when, as I

Turned the corner to where you lived, I saw

Snowdrops now jostled by slim crocuses

       

And daffodils.  I rang the bell.  Birds sang –

Your spring choir, choir of quittance.  But inside

I found you did not seem to recognise

Our voices.  You had set off already.

 

            Waiting to be

                Released,

            You lay in sun,

                Dazzled

 

            No longer.  Breaths

                Came slow.

            We waited for

                The next –

 

            Which came.  A gap.

                A breath.

            A greater gap.

                And then

 

            That last breath drawn,

                Waiting,

            We found it was

                The last.

 

What is death but another birth?  A shift

Back to that unknown place we came from once.

You have taught me now how to fear it less.

Next it will be our turn; for now, we learn.

 

            Funeral done,

                We drive

            Under a clip

                Of moon.

 

            An inverted

                Snowdrop –

            It punches back

                The dark.

 

            When it is a

                Quarter,

            It will be your

                Birthday.

 

            Now it blazons

                Out the

            Re-birth of spring.

                Life!  Life!

 

Rosh Hodesh is the New Moon. Adar is the month in the (lunar) Hebrew calendar which signifies the start of spring.

February 2016