Presence

We have not forgotten you, my darling.
You have not gone away.

Your brother asks after you,
And we explain to him.

And we feel the enduring sadness,
Unfolding along life's path from here.

And we look at your picture,
With a sense deeper than words.

Gift

"Daddy, your view of God is all wrong,"
She told me.

And she was right, it was.

Believing bipeds

Are we really just Skinner's pigeons,
Twitching in trained belief?

Mammals becoming hairless;
Are we really just
Eat or be eaten,
Echoes and reflections of our longest past
On the planes and in caves?

Is that us,
Now learning to individuate, with discomfort,
Islands of one, alone?

Are we held up by stories,
Believing as true for dear life
These vile deterministic tales of purpose in it all,
Set in a short story of millenia,
Then some vague promise of paradise?

Are we so deceived and limited in our grasp,
Perceiving intention and sensitivity everywhere,
Expecting order
As we catalogue each new secret revealed?

Is Great Time the mocker,
So vast we cannot grasp it,
The folds of whose heavy black curtain, so many,
We cannot find our way even a few steps?

Where is meaning? Where is purpose?

These things in which I committed my cause, believing.
I asked to be shown The Truth,
And now I feel alone.

The truth is:
The limiting safety of belief,
Or the fearsome open space of beginning to know.

I'm all for believing,
But I cannot reverse
Adam's bite of the apple:
His eyes were opened,
He was naked and afraid.
And he hid.

One year

It's one year,
And the daffodil stands in the lawn.

A neighbour sends a photograph.
She knows.

We watch you on the video,
Your little brown eyes looking around.

And we pause to think about you.

God, broken

At church, I spoke
It was different this time
I tried to be honest, to be me.

I said that God seemed distant
It's hard to enter the city of refuge
When you can't see where it is.

Afterwards, a friend, made a point to talk to me:
"Your conception of God must be broken
To find out what is real, beneath".

And now, as I sit in church, in a new country
I am confused by the curious language and odd practice
And amazed by the cherry blossom on the tree outside: is that God?

Why do we do these things?
Strange rituals, largely empty
And sit lonely, all believing something else to be true, really.

I have a son, two years old
And he is wonder, and wonderful
I see God in him, clearly.

Postman

(a poem from earlier)

I stood at the window
and watched the postman
counting the letters
and folding them up
to shove in the letterbox.

I go to collect them
not to welcome our baby to the world
but cards of sympathy and loss.

I hold your hand in mine

On the day you were born,
in the first hour -
the plaster man came to the room
to make molds
of your hands and feet
as we held you in our arms.

And now
Six months after you've gone
I hold your hand in mine
Your tiny hand
The very image
of your hands and feet
in plaster.

I turn your hand this way and that
Examining all the tiny details
The fingers, the lines.

Is this all we have?
The very substance of you
In white plaster
A shape, a form
Which was your imprint on the world,
Like words you left for us -
Your mark, more powerful than any writing.

I hold your hand in mine
And I am reminded of you
And you make me pause for a moment -
I am still and I say nothing
I just look at your hands and your feet
and I feel.

Eyes, looking

I look at your picture standing on the dresser
And I wonder,
Where are you?

Your face, so real - but not here now.

What was that moment in time?

I look at your eyes, open,
Looking,
And wonder about those
Who said you would never be wise

And know better,
That you were wise
From before you were born.

Is God stone?

Is God stone
A statue
With stone for eyes
And an open mouth which does not move?

And a pock-marked stone skin
Beaten by the weather of ages
And praise and supplications
Sent heavenwards
From our soft lips.

And in his mouth
Fixed, unmoving,
Are crammed the things we would make him say
Like empty boxes piled up in the opening of a cave
Or slips of paper with scratchings of words
Screwed up and jammed
Into the Western Wall
As if by doing this we make Him speak.

What is God exactly?
How does he interact with us?
What is the function of prayer?
How did we come to be here?

I see the evidence all around me
But I don't hear His voice.

Last visit to Doctor John's

This place
Where babies are planned
To be brought into the world
And young children play with the toys
And babes are in evidence
And the radio plays from the ceiling.

This place
Which couldn't bring us
Our little one
For very long.

Brown carpet, brown bench seats
Brown panelling
And brushed metal
Along the counter.
The fish tank
The photography journals
And trashy magazines
And the row of the radio.

The water cooler
And the pleasant manner of the midwives
In the examining rooms, taking blood pressure
And Dr. John's office,
with his daughter's art
And the sound of his voice
As he stands at the corner and says,

"Come in folks."

This place
This exercise
We went through
Which I don't understand
Because it came to nought,
Almost nought,
Where one is a viable life
And nought is otherwise.

This place,
This last visit,
In review of what has passed by us and between us
Which carries
Not the name of a file
But the name of our daughter.

The first daffodil

A lone daffodil
Stood brightly
On a cold morn

The first messenger in our lawn
Speaking, without words,
"Spring is nearly here"

She welcomed you
To the world.

You came on Friday,
And left us on Saturday.

But sadly,
You didn't come home.

The daffodil
Stood throughout
As a testimony

To you.

And a few
Knew it
And understood

A connection,

Something.

The blinds fitter

He comes, name of Stuart
From the blinds shop

To fit new window treatments, four,
To our walls

He sees our lounge table, covered
In about 200 condolences cards

"Someone havin' a party?!"
He exclaims

And then is told
Of the passing of our daughter.

(How can we be so upbeat about it all,
Little one?)

He fixes the blinds and chatters
About investment property

And retiring early,
In seventeen years.

Then he leaves
With his plans.

The cards are slowing down,
Just a few now.

17 years.

Threads

We are all connected
By a thread, a web,
As fine as a spider's, spun,
Invisible.

I am here, with you,
Little lad
And Nanny is far away
But connected to us.

And your sister is here,
Connected somehow.
Because as the wind blows
I can feel the timpani of the threads
Pulling at my heart, connected.
It resonates.

When you giggle, little one,
I can feel us
All connected
And your sister opens her eyes
And sees us
And is part of it all.

How hardly we perceive these fragile threads,
And how poorly we live our lives
Because of this.

Fish and chips

We order fish and chips for tea.

Three grilled fish, one crumbed,
And chips for four.

"Your wife had her baby yet?"

I look at the red counter.
"No," I reply,
"Actually we lost the baby, she died,"
I say gently.

The woman is shocked and doesn't know what to say.

"She wasn't very well;
We had her for a day and a half".

There isn't very much anyone can say.

Poor little darling.

* * *

(Epilogue)
How I wish I could say something more for you.
But they are all just words,
About as significant as the movement of wind in the leaves;
And you are gone.

And we are left behind,
Walking out of the shop
With warm fish in hand,
And a desire for meaning in our hearts.

Flowers

To be honest,
I'm sick of the flowers
(all fourteen bunches of them, or whatever it is).

The house smells,
And they're making a mess.

And I don't want to be reminded.

Our neighbour cut our lawn
Without being asked:
A much nicer gift than flowers.

I don't think I'll enjoy cut flowers in the house again;
I just see waste and irritation.

Explanations

The cards
Are full of explanations.

Like,
"underneath are the loving arms of God."

Or,
"called into Jesus' bosom."

Or,
"at His appearing."

And,
"God's bigger picture."

Most of which are for the benefit of the writer,
Trying to explain it to themselves, to fit comfortably,
Not the reader,
Struggling and restless, facing meaninglessness.

And none of which explains
Her passing
At all.

Traumerei (music for dreaming)

We don't play that music any more
Music for dreaming
The music we settled your brother to
Music so constant and soothing
He would drift away.

Now that music is more bitter than sweet
Because you danced in Mummy's tummy
And I would feel you move under my hand
And we had hope.

But it was dashed.

We held you so briefly
And then
You were gone.
Nothing to feel anymore.

Now we play Traumerei
Different music
To settle your brother
And you are gone, leaving
An aching, unspoken gap
Where a large invisible
Question mark
Hangs, obvious
For us to feel.

The house stands the same,
But we don't play that music any more.

Where are you now, my little one?

Where have you gone?

Christianity

What is Christianity, anyway?
A lot of smiling faces
With pain behind.

And some vague promise of jam tomorrow
All decorated in dull pewter frames
With the words,
He Loves You
Engraved.

Standing in a poorly lit bookshop window
In a dowdy part of town
Where developers hope
To refurbish
For greater earthly rewards than these,
From coffee sales and chrome stools.

Snaps

She comes with camera
And a sensible view of things
And every pure intention
Under the sun.

To help us, from far away,
And we're very grateful.

And we love her.

But at the grave side
And as I carry the tiny coffin
In my arms
She snaps on the digital camera
As if capturing images
For a school project.

"So the children can see what happened".

Pictures of me, of us,
In a private moment.

Even though, through gritted teeth
And tears
I asked not to.

There is a time to take snaps,
And a time to refrain -
A time for everything under heaven.

And a time to leave alone,
Unphotographed,
My heaving body,
Bent over,
As my daughter is lowered

Into the ground.

Length of days

"He didn't look after 'imself,"
The undertaker says
Describing a man of 42
Who smoked
And drank hard drink and strong coffee.

Looking after yourself,
He described with a certain emphasis, as
"eat good food"
"drink lots of water"
"and get rest - not sleep".

He made it sound like washing the car,
Flossing your teeth,
Or saving monthly.

But I realised as the undertaker spoke,
A man who feels the grim reality of death each day,
Like a fine dry paste in his fingers,
That something as simple as looking after ourselves
Might determine
Our length of days.

Cheese Shop

"Isn't your little one growing?!"
Asks the friendly smiling woman in the cheese shop.

"Yes," I reply, as I stroke his fine hair,
"He'll be 23 months, tomorrow."

And my daughter would be two weeks old.

Instead, yesterday,
We laid her to rest in the ground.
With flowers on top
And petals sprinkled.

Undertaker's Jargon

Undertaker's jargon.
Is there anything more horrid
To the living?

'Cross-sticks,'
And 'caterfault'.

Spoken with a certain mouth sound,
As if he'd just consumed
Fruit chutney
With cheese
On a digestive biscuit.



(Cross-sticks are the rods that run across an open grave to suspend the coffin before it is lowered into the ground on straps. A caterfault is the place where the coffin stands during the funeral service. It usually has rollers to allow the coffin to be moved; it may also descend into the basement below the church to permit loading/unloading of coffins.)