BTT #81: Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, In Remembrance

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Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, In Remembrance.

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“Well you only ever really know that you’re living, when you’re totally sure that you’re dying, Maybe we get where we want to go. I don’t know, Fuck it, maybe the earth opens up and swallows us whole.”

Laura Jane Grace/ Against Me¡, 12:03

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I have lost

Both old and young

Loved ones,

And also two’s,

Our infant child who just

Squeezed my hand

And breathed only right

Up until she was given leave

To leave.

And then I also

Thought I heard my

Granddad’s voice

In my head

Several days after

I had heard that

He was dead.

I could not make the

Funeral trip, and cried out quiet

In the night that I loved him,

He never was much for words,

“I love you too,”

Was all he said.

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Like everyone,

And everytwo,

I have lost out to death,

But was I really able to

Be sad about it

The way

 I was supposed to?

Each grief,

Back then,

Was wrapped softly in

A velvet cushion,

Of expectation

For sweet reunion,

The words I heard

And truly held

Were that death was not a

Loss, but just a bit

Of a wait,

An embrace, and smile,

Would greet us, and perhaps

We would give and get

A grace or two, as an old harsh

Word or silence or grudge

Was left outside the gate.

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But now,

When doubt has found me,

I grieve you

Father and Mother God

Most deeply.

You were, after all,

Always with me,

From first remembered steps

My hands were folded,

I was lucky, to be sure,

That I was told that you

Preferred that I be loved

Instead of scolded.

When my daughter died,

I thought I felt you

Lift her in your arms

Towards your shore,

And when the darkness

Almost took me,

And I wanted to end

Because I was simply

Desperate to really be alive,

Rather than just pretend,

I felt a warm and simple

Peace that I should live,

And be myself, even if

That made it seem I was

Taking more than I could give.

I dreamed my tears were

Caught in loving hands,

Kind eyes gazing,

Smiling in that place where

Pain just fell out through

A bloody scratched-out door.

All these things are with me,

But are you really,

Really there,

Or just ideas of love

Gathering in our hearts and

In the air?

I cannot simply scrawl

An epitaph that “God is dead,”

For something wants to whisper

Even still,

Pressing, calling from down the hallway

For me to answer.

Is it sunspots,

Or tiny seizures?

I am certain only that

I can never again be certain

Whether there is something

Other than ourselves

Out there whirling

In all the

Space and dust

And time

Behind the curtain.

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I can’t delay

A single breath in waiting

For that better world

Or new frontier,

If that is where we will

Arrive one day,

Blinking and maybe

Not surprised,

It can only be

By way of

Living now and

Living here.

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I still want you,

I miss you,

I grieve you,

And each of your children I have lost

I grieve again now

In a new way,

As if they’re really gone,

Because they are.

And my faith is like

Peter Pan’s shadow

That has flown,

And can’t be reconnected by

Either needle, thread,

Or soap,

It makes no sense to be hiding

Anywhere except

Where I am standing,

Backlit,

Somehow by something

Circling in my mind,

Is it you?

Or just a remnant

Lingering as something

Either fades or brightens,

You tell me which,

Into slippery hope.

• Lona Gynt, November 1, 2022 on Dia De Los Muertos.
• All rights reserved for text and photos.

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In response to a prompt over at dVerse, where Mish is hosting. on this Dia De Los Muertos, she invites us to write a poem about a loved one we have lost, on this day where we may celebrate a brief opening between our world and the world of the dead. Here is the link:

https://dversepoets.com/2022/11/01/poetics-dia-de-los-muertos/

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