Until the Divine Moves

[Terry A]

(Until the Divine moves
even the winds
push nothing but dust.)

The resistance to final count-down
the repeated curtain calls
terminal ends hanging interminably

until eyes close and open no more.
      And the celebration of life
riding precariously
half-truths presented so carefully
so as to not disturb those left behind

       Anxious to put it all behind them
do laundry polish the car
order the redecorators to continue.

Such are some ends
The great unremembering
The partial recall
The higher road
       even the forgiving.

The great patsy of decorum
shines beside the gates of hell
-the open and close on rusty hinges

            And I watch and wait
for a great silence to quell
the weeping, for the black dog
to walk away.

[Terry A]

I did the -ing-thing again and so edited the poem.

[badger11]

Enjoyed this Terry, though I found it quite challenging to unpick phrases from the text, but found that exercise worthwhile.

Terminal/interminably - like the play and the use of curtain calls in the context. Your play with half truths'  struck a chord, as did the distraction list.

The higher road of forgiveness 👍

Yep that black dog!

I 'enjoyed' this poem muchly

Phil

[Terry A]

Thanks Phil! Yep, poetry should be enjoyed- be sensuous, appeal to the imagination, expand understanding and meaning, cognitively open doors, like the flow of electricity with little shocks of originality. Mostly capture the human experience, give meaning to the times we live in.

Should, should, should.........easier said than done (for me, anyway).

[Terry A]

When my parents got married, there were only a few pictures taken by relatives in the countryside. One showed a black dog standing in frame with them. When my Mother died in a ground floor palliative care room, at that very moment, a black dog was seen sitting outside the window looking in.

Said, just to give some (unnecessary?) context to the poem.

[badger11]

Hi Terry

I presume you are asking if I read that narrative. No, I didn't, but I can see that it is a fit for the poem. I read a relationship break-up and the black dog related to depression.

Bw

Phil

[Terry A]

I do not presume anything.   In Canada, the funeral with its solemnity has been replaced by something called a 'celebration of life'. I thought that was sufficient clue as to the nature of the poem. No, the black dog was actually a critter. Anyway, i am belabouring and explaining my own poem and I hate to do that. 

Appreciate your comments.

[Tinker]

Hi Terry, Your opening is awesome.  Sets the tone and describes my life for the last year and half.   I hate funerals and dread "celebrations of life" even more.  My husband's ashes sit on a shelf waiting that time when my son and I can get together with the weather and simply go out beyond the bay and slip them into the deep.  Which was his request.  But I've been asked why on several occasions.  I guess the mourning is not over until we get it done.  

~~Judi

[badger11]

'celebration of life'...now I see the key!😃

[Terry A]

Hi Phil, yes, it's a bit of a challenge sometimes to provide enough information in a poem to circle its meaning and then my realizing that some references might be too vague to unify the substance of the poem.  

Judi, only a year and a half since your husband passed? That's not long. By the determined vibrance of your poetry, it appears you are managing well as possible. By the mention of your son and grandson here and there, I can tell they are of great comfort. Water symbolizes life, so I can understand your husband's last wish to return to water. I think it does signify closure.

Funerals used to be times where people greatly considered their own mortality and considered what might lay beyond, a worthwhile exercise for all.  And gave grief a place to be expressed in sympathetic company. A time when the veils between worlds lifted even so slightly to those sensitive to such things. The expected joviality of some 'celebrations of life' render death too superficially to allow its meaning fulness. But it all varies, and I don't attend most. 

When my grandmother died, her funeral was in a little country cemetery. She was very old and the her few surviving friends (very old ladies, all dressed in black) walked in front of her coffin wailing as it was carried to the gravesite. That alone, to me as a young girl, brought the utter significance of her passing home. It seems almost macabre in retrospect but it had the intensity to imprint significance. Not the trailing off into oblivion the moderns practice so often now in their rites.