So as I sat in a little village church today waiting for a funeral to start, I remembered this moment; I looked around and thought about the vast mass of humanity which seemed to me like a wave, of which I recognised myself to be a part all of a sudden. Now that 'My Life's Work has had some affirmation, it seems that everything has made me what I am - the people I have been influenced by, the people that love me, the things I may be naturally good at, and the things I can't do like remember or understand history or whether the sun goes round the moon or vice versa or anything philosophical, doing theology and not going to art college - and even my deafness that has dogged me since repeated attacks of mumps in childhood and of which I have been so ashamed and still makes me cry because I know I have missed out on a lot of life because of it, and will there be any so-far hidden gains from this? Somehow I didn't care any more, I felt content to be part of that big wave that is humanity, that all together we make up that big wave, full of bits of this and that, but all together, all in it together, and that I am the sum of what all these have made me, and that now at my great age I must make a big effort to take some kind of control in that moment my feet are on the sand, before I really AM recycled and indistinguishable from the great mass of salty decaying matter. For a moment or two that day in the sea and today, I felt, as well as believed, that being me was not my fault, and better still, that being me was good.
*Split infinitive? You're going to complain about that? Are you telling me I should have shouted 'GET OUT and promise me you will never, ever disgrace my memory by splitting an infinitive!'
Many argue nowadays that the idea of an infinitive split was erroneous anyway... what an immensely delicious photo of the sea - Katherine Mansfield sensed its spirit
ReplyDeleteThe Sea called--I lay on the rocks and said:
"I am come."
She mocked and showed her teeth,
Stretching out her long green arms.
"Go away!" she thundered.
"Then tell me what I am to do," I begged.
"If I leave you, you will not be silent,
But cry my name in the cities
And wistfully entreat me in the plains and forests;
All else I forsake to come to you--what must I do?"
"Never have I uttered your name," snarled the Sea.
"There is no more of me in your body
Than the little salt tears you are frightened of shedding.
What can you know of my love on your brown rock
pillow....
Come closer."
and this one which I feel part of - in many ways I followed her footsteps:
Into the world you sent her, mother,
Fashioned her body of coral and foam,
Combed a wave in her hair's warm smother,
And drove her away from home
In the dark of the night she crept to the town
And under a doorway she laid her down,
The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown.
And never a sister and never a brother
To hear her call, to answer her cry.
Her face shone out from her hair's warm smother
Like a moonkin up in the sky.
She sold her corals; she sold her foam;
Her rainbow heart like a singing shell
Broke in her body: she crept back home.
Peace, go back to the world, my daughter,
Daughter, go back to the darkling land;
There is nothing here but sad sea water,
And a handful of sifting sand.
A funeral. To me death, as our ex PM David Lange said, is very very terminal. I don't fear dying but my mother died last November, and the grief, so far away, doesn't fade, it is unbearable. I did appreciate your 'plot fitting' photo though - but I'll opt from cremation. Stay away from candles with your lovely hair. I did that once and a flame whipped up from my hips which was where the hair hung down to. But not in anything so romantic as a church. :-)
steph xx
opt FOR cremation, ceremonial burning... see I did it too, blinking finger brain miscommunication!!
ReplyDeletesteph
Steph, those poems and thoughts are so lovely. MANY thanks for taking the time and trouble to put them here. Viv (one of my daft names is Bibbles, by the way) XXX
ReplyDelete