7. Unchanging truths: parting

As I near my eighth decade, I can no longer ignore the approaching reality of death. Ours is perhaps the first generation when the promise of a reunion in the after-life, which I believed in as a child, is not generally held.

I used Coventry Patmore’s moving poem A Farewell to imagine my feelings at the death of a loved one.

“Against my will, my mind, my broken heart,
We two now part –
For you grew old.
No longer can I your warm self enfold –
Yet you’re a part
Of all I ever knew….”

Emily Dickinson’s plangent Because I Could Not Stop for Death prompted further musings on its imminence.

“…Because I had not stopped for Death,
He took me by surprise-
A snow-white stallion, charging, fierce,
Before my astounded eyes….

…War horses came from olden times,
Not from our post-war years;
Fears were easily pushed aside,
Without stress or tears….

Now I see his steaming flanks,
His wildly tossing mane,
His foaming mouth and pounding hooves,
And know that never again

Will he graze in pastures green,
Beside a well-worn path;
Riderless, he gallops onwards,
With fatal aftermath….”

Next: Covid – young love