Her breath is easy
And her eyes are closed,
As is her mouth –
She is breathing through her nose.

I am tremulous
Inside my body
(Which I hold firm
so that nobody knows.)

Her fear of dying
Is no longer there –
For in her dreams
Such conception is lost.

I stroke her forehead
With my tired knuckle –
Softest gestures
Of familial love.

Somewhere deep inside
She hears my soft voice
Make mellow words
To guide her soft away?

There is much to say,
All of it chosen
For the right time:
For this parting place.

From where comes my script?
Borne perhaps just by care?

Written nowhere, the words come

From out of thin air?

Closing on the void,
Her breathing stutters –
Just now and then –
Most like a child’s sigh.

‘Don’t be fearful, Mum,
you can now let go –
though I love you
as you surely know.’

How could I not wish
Her struggle to end?
Sepsis invades –
Starves her very core.

With new eyes I see her:
Her fragility
Washes my heart
Free of its imbalance.

Does she see my father
With arms outstretched wide
To welcome her

To some ethereal space?

To balance outside,
My inside is motionless,
Knowing the celestial horn
Is about to sound.

Together we slide:
Her to ever sleep –
Knowing it’s love
That is making me weep.

—o—

The nurse sensing death approaches:
‘Can you see Fred, Rita?’
She feels for a pulse…
With such gentle fingers.

—o—

There is a stillness
Come to her body.
An ocean of
Emotion comes into mine.

I confess that then I quake, decorum broken, I am falling,

I slip with the end of a string gripped in my hand.

My balance is lost, and the string slides effortlessly from my grasp

As it becomes an amorphous silver cord rising through the air.

“Every morning we are born again, what we are today is what matters most.” [Gautama Buddha]

That is all.

© Griffonner (c2018) 2026