Just after two
The mocking bird stopped
Taunting outside your window
And its silence
Pierced my depths
While I danced at the grove
Of weeping women
I could not let go
Where chaos threatened
To reign-
Not a tear was shed
Not one
With profound inner calmness
I rested my head by your temple
On the sweat-drenched pillow
And became a clear light
Through which you
Passed silently
With barely a breath
Mother lunged
With the fierce power
Of a lioness tearing her
Fragile little one
From the mouths
Of jackals
But the jackals
Carried you off anyway
My hand
Firm
On her heaving body
Thrown over yours
And my voice speaking
The words
Let Him Go
How could I mourn
When the jackals
Were already stalking
Another prize?
There was no wake
No place to mark where
Your ashes were strewn
The sorrow
Buried itself in my DNA
Where it replicated to form
Every cell which renewed
Continuously
In my body
And it seeped into my
Dreams in the long
Solitary nights
I dreamed of women
In ancient times
Who would rend their
Clothes when the wind
Carried to them
Across the acres
The last breath
Of their beloved
Child or lover
In death
She feared not
The encroaching madness
Which would overtake
And lead her
To walk the long miles
On foot
To the house
Where the body
Whose soul had
Taken flight
Held its door open
To her mournful tread
As the hands of time
Stood still,
The mirror shrouded
Could not reflect
The unbound woman
She had become
O Keening Woman!
Teach me your
Wordless song
Which holds back
The hounds of hell
Let unravel in me
The sorrow
Which keeps me bound
To a hundred yesterdays
With unshed tears
31 October 2010
Please note that this poem is not in reference to the tradition of keening at a wake, with or without pay. I read long ago an article about stories of women among the ancient Goídels who would sense the passing of loved ones and grieve so wildly that those around them thought them temporarily mad. They are reported to have dropped what they had been doing and walked in a kind of trance, sometimes over several counties, to the spot where their loved one lay dead.
I took the photograph at a stunningly beautiful cemetery in Berlin, Germany several years ago.
