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published
in In The Company of Poets, 2003
Hearing
Eye, ISBN 1 870841 89 1
Windows
of the Soul
A couple of days before
my mother’s soul
left
her body
the
windows of it clouded over.
Her
eyes stared from open lids
as
through opaque glass:
marbles
in a pallid face
breathing
laboriously on the hospital pillow.
Were
they really unseeing
or
just unseen;
the
blinds pulled down,
the
resident peeking from behind?
Blank
eyes no longer glaring
anger,
disdain, jealousy, threats—
snake
with rabbit,
instilling
eternal apprehension
and
low self esteem
which
unintentionally bred
shame
at my lineage, being of her blood.
It
was no comfort
to
see the ogre brought low;
a
powerless form
attached
to morphine and catheter tubes;
the
warm hand I held limp,
unable
to grasp or spank or shake me.
She
lay vanquished, immobile,
yet
I could not rejoice, felt no triumph—
her
near lifelong chipping away
at
my soul and confidence
ceasing
only as death approached.
At
last her torso rose up,
jerking
briefly to a sitting position,
eyes
staring blindly;
then
she flopped back on the pillow,
harsh
breathing stopped,
her
soul flown to that place below
from
the now harmless body,
her
eyes still gazing
through
milky glass, darkly.
I
could feel no grief
except
for what might have been
had
she remained
the
kind companion and teacher
of
my first four happy years
whose
soft hazel eyes looked on me
with
delight and loving pride.
I
kissed the dead brow gently
as
once she used to bid
her
sleeping little girl
a
final, lingering goodnight.
Philippa Lawrence
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