Two for Tuesday: Remembrance
Tuesday early morning. More storms on the horizon, a bit warmer, 77 degrees.
Hello again. I apologize for the length of yesterday’s post, but I had so much to say and so much that I wanted to share that the whole thing just got away from me, but really, I’m not sorry, because the message was important, the information needed. Much like ALS finally receiving some notable publicity via the ice bucket challenges, perhaps more attention will be paid to suicide as a result of Robin Williams’s suicide.
Perhaps, but I doubt it. Suicide remains shameful, something not to be talked about, which, I suppose, is why I chose to talk about it so much.
Anyway, the Balgach poem below was originally going with yesterday’s post, but I felt that two poems was overkill, as it were, so here it is, along with another one I just found by Noel Coward, and I must admit that for some reason, I never equated Coward with poetry, only plays. Just goes to show how much you don’t know when you think you know everything.
Enjoy.
What Holds Us
This morning I listened to the first birds of spring.
Even those birds bear the weight of time on their shoulders.
I have come from the ends of the universe to tell you this. Right now
I am so present that my breaths feel like knives
and these recollections are as loud
as a stranger’s footsteps on a quiet street.
Yesterday I recited the names of every dead person I know
because each day their names are spoken less. Everyone gets forgotten.
We each forget something about ourselves,
every day. It doesn’t matter. In the afternoon,
even on cold afternoons, birds sing their truths like birds
and I long to be as original as a first kiss.
I don’t know why I am trying to tell your heart
to hear its own tick. Tomorrow is going to come like lightning.
I’ll be breathing down some stranger’s neck,
pacing old footsteps over the same sidewalk I walked yesterday,
wondering what to eat for supper.
Such tired tunes make all of us go round
like ponies at the fair. Nobody deserves anything
but we want so much. Only nothing holds us forever.
~ Martin Balgach
Nothing is Lost
Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
~ Noel Coward
Music by The Soundtrack of Our Lives, “Second Life Replay”
Images are taken from Connie – A Wandering Soul tumblr.
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 