07-04-2014, 12:10 PM
Let me redo this: This poem is from Joanne M. Clarkson's newly published book of poetry "Believing The Body." She's spent several years as a Hospice and Community nurse. Many of the poems in this collection have to do with the theme of death and dying. She's a poetry buddy of mine from my neck of the woods who frequents some of the same poetry haunts as I do. I really like her poetry, and have a lot of respect for her strength of heart in caring for people at such a vulnerable time in their lives.
DEEP MERCY
Copper, his life given for this
shine. Now he goes even deeper
into the wet collapse of lungs,
hunting, desperate, for any vein of air.
The miner, retired, slumps over his
coffee mug, gasping like the rainbow trout
he cast on Montana's riverbanks.
She is at the range, stirring, watching
sideways, her air wrinkling
into his, so that as she forces out
breath, she panics and calls it back.
She packed his lunch for thirty-five years,
worrying while he headed for shafts
where, beyond the daylight, he harvested the stuff of
wire, bullets and pennies.
He is coughing again, shaking the table,
sloshing coffee, hot, onto his hands.
She moves across the kitchen, then,
knowing he is ready.
"May I lay upon you one more time my husband?"
Weary as habit, he follows her up
impossible stairs, stopping on every other one
to wheeze and pant, collect enough
wind for one more tread
toward the room where he hasn't slept for years.
The ceiling sighs, the bedsprings creak
once, then again, as she drapes her body
over his, presses down, breasts to chest,
so that no amount of will can make
it rise. Silence, then weeping. An old
remedy. A kindness, really
DEEP MERCY
Copper, his life given for this
shine. Now he goes even deeper
into the wet collapse of lungs,
hunting, desperate, for any vein of air.
The miner, retired, slumps over his
coffee mug, gasping like the rainbow trout
he cast on Montana's riverbanks.
She is at the range, stirring, watching
sideways, her air wrinkling
into his, so that as she forces out
breath, she panics and calls it back.
She packed his lunch for thirty-five years,
worrying while he headed for shafts
where, beyond the daylight, he harvested the stuff of
wire, bullets and pennies.
He is coughing again, shaking the table,
sloshing coffee, hot, onto his hands.
She moves across the kitchen, then,
knowing he is ready.
"May I lay upon you one more time my husband?"
Weary as habit, he follows her up
impossible stairs, stopping on every other one
to wheeze and pant, collect enough
wind for one more tread
toward the room where he hasn't slept for years.
The ceiling sighs, the bedsprings creak
once, then again, as she drapes her body
over his, presses down, breasts to chest,
so that no amount of will can make
it rise. Silence, then weeping. An old
remedy. A kindness, really
You can't hate me more than I hate myself. I win.
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."