It is not that they are dead . . .

 . . . but that we are still alive.
So many who gave us form and reason are
Moving on to other things, whatever they,
Or you, believe, that is where they are.
Perhaps beyond the stars, or lying in a
Deep velvet peace of nothing, or waiting
Patiently in line to come back again.
Perhaps they have solved the great enigma now,
And are laughing with god, or dancing with
Dragonflies?
But we are still here, and whilst we are still here
They are not dead, for what they did, and said
Lives on in our minds and memories, the
Soundtrack of our growing years has not
Been erased, but plays now with perhaps a hiss
And a crackle, and a jump where we were scratched
By the pains that accompany the role of being human.
We can still read their words, and hear their voices,
Feel their joy and sadness through the notes they
Placed together, and we can take that expression
And make it our own, so no, they are not dead.
But with each physical death, a little of us is
Diminished, a little of the colour that we
Scribbled into our pictures with crayons and
Felt tip pens, leaches away into the evening of
The day.


(c) 2ndwitch, 27/12/16

Remembering Eliot . . .

The cold December wind slices through
Clothes, and slowly numbs the skin.
The cold December wind mocks the closed
Windows and drawn curtains, and sneaks
Under the chairs to wind around your ankles.
The cold December wind reminds you that is
The ending of the year, perhaps the zenith
Or the nadir of growth and sunlight, or
The reign of moonlight over night.
It is when that December wind blows, lazily,
And with malice, around your ears and down
Your scarf-clad neck, then is the time you
Are reminded of the year gone by, and of
Those you have lost and will see no more.
And it is when the wind dies away, and settles
Into a soft sigh of frost chilled breath, that is
The time you think of the new year still to come.


(c) 2ndwitch, 13/12/16