Terminus

I

Does suffering end?
The endless rasping voice
in its vain lament,
those outstretched arms
pleading for the dead to turn back
met with silence instead,
no backward glance,
no flicker of acknowledgement
or knowing smile,
no reassurance not to worry
that this isn’t the meaning of life,
that, my loved ones, is our laughter,
our consolatory acts,
our presence in each other’s days.

Every note ever composed,
every herald of every season,
every choir’s voice,
every tear we drop into the earth,
every scream,
all try to express
this unbearable truth.
We know it yet deny it,
and in futile defiance
try to change it when we know
it can never change.

II

This bitterness of old age:
drunk, looking backwards,
and more hesitant
than you’ve ever been
in your life,
forever pausing,
procrastinating, finding
every possible rationale
as to avoid the plunge.

Everybody tires of each other
and then they move away:
the text messaged replies
briefer and cursory,
voicemails unanswered,
the physical distances
too mountainous to want to travel,
the spine, bearer of lifetime’s burden,
aches beyond endurance,
and here you are: a beast of burden
buckled at the knees,
thirsty, pleading for salvation,
so damn tired of the heat
and ready to be put down. 

III

With acceptance comes hope.
Even in winter
I can wait for crisper days:
the mud-caked boots,
carpets of fallen leaves,
droplets on black iron fences,
the air ice-blue and mist.

I can sense the renewal beneath me:
crab apples mushed yellow and brown,
conkers and acorns softened split,
fallen branches yielding to dust.
I squelch and crack over them
as jackdaws chatter in the canopy,
my hair and jacket damp with air.

It’s childhood I can smell – too briefly -
as every one of life’s moments since then
is taken by the cutting breeze.
A sharp intake of breath
and I know I’m alive.

IV

What prospects arrived with the dawn?
Appointments – dentist, pharmacist, surgery,
then an intentioned quick-step
through the supermarket
turns into a lost time,
unfocussed and dithering
in front of the ready-made salads
or the booze,
trying to avoid an overloaded basket.
Then the check-out chat
and a too-heavy carrier bag
blanching my knuckles
during the walk home.

It’s time to write, to answer calls,
to sweep the hallway, to paint the fence,
the must-dos elbow aside the want-to-dos
and the want-to-dos push back.
Is it worth it?
It’s weariness that wins in the end.

Through the window
Mrs what’s-her-name loudly empties
a small brown bin into a big blue bin,
schoolboys meander home
scruffy and laughing,
a delivery man waits
in front of a neighbour’s door,
and an older man hesitates
on the kerb, his eyes wide with fear
as the rush hour stream drives on
oblivious to his plight.