sonnet xvii

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

(Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda)



a much loved and respected co-worker unexpectedly lost his wife last night. the size and impact of the ripples of her loss - the void her departure has left, and his grief - were so hard to comprehend or size up today.

what was plainer - and strangely shocking - to see instead, was the disbelief, the shadow of an as yet uncomprehended grief that slowly crept across co-workers throughout the day.

two co-workers in particular - strong, positive women i respect and look up to - separately confided how determined they were to maintain their exteriors and power-through the day, as we softly worked out the practicalities of our leader's absence... as tears welled up in their wide, searching eyes...

there are so many memories, so many times, that flooded my mind today. times when he fondly regaled us with stories of his wife from their long and very happy marriage; all those countless times when the phone would ring around 5pm and we knew it was his wife, calling on cue; he'd ask "so what's for dinner" and we'd quietly chuckle at their endearing old married banter...

she'll not call again.
i'll not wave him out of a meeting again for that call.
we'll not hear him ask "so what's for dinner tonight, then?" again.
or "how's the boy?"

we'll miss someone we've never met.

we already do.

we'll tenderly mind and console a dear co-worker - distanced by the rungs of the career ladder - finding ways to deliver the impact of a hug through the mundanity of greyed, everyday, officed, achingly English gestures.

thinking about it, grief seems an ambiguous beast. where does it begin? how does it end? what ends does it serve? what profit from grief? where does that brutal curve lead?

i honestly think the only certain thing - as in everything in life - is love. and that only love can help. it soothes, slows, eases, wraps.

love; from one creature to another.

maybe not a silver bullet, but a slow, steady, purposed course through the bleakest, most brutal terrains.



(i wanted to post this as a mark of respect to someone who i'd barely brushed paths with. just a small, quiet post, to mark a moment, to send my small, anonymous love into the void, charted to those reeling from this loss.

i read this poem at the wedding of two dear friends a few years ago, at the beginning of their life together. once it came to mind tonight, it struck me as being just as fitting to mark the end of what seemed to be a very happy and long relationship; a marriage that was a quiet celebration of solid, understated love.)

these sheets

did you lie here
where i lay yesterday

did they hold you
as gently as they hold me today

did they scratch your fading skin
did they soften with age

did they bear witness
as you passed through this place

then stay with me
as i tripped with school

do they tie us together
some ancient nocturnal rope trick

do they thin
with years, weathered

a finer thread
still tying us together

did they witness grief and tears
after the love that brought me here

will the name you gave to me
stitched and faded, one day pass on

folded and laundered
soon now they'll be quartered

staying and waiting
for your grandson to come

"I Still Miss Someone"

I've been meaning to borrow the old family photo albums from my Mum for a while now, to scan some of these old shots in.

I ache to see some of these old photos, desperate to refresh fading memories, of ghosts and times i barely knew, but love and miss. Every day. Still.

I always eye the huge pile of loved, and lovingly assembled leatherbound photo albums, in their quiet place, at the bottom of a bookcase in the corner of my Mum & stepdad's living room.

They pulled at me again today, when I went round for lunch.

So I finally plucked up the courage, risking upsetting both of us, and asked my Mum if I could borrow the earliest volume to scan some shots in. Some gaps, losses, absences - whatever you call them - never quite seem to heal over. They're accepted, but never quite understood. It's so difficult to explain. Or talk about.

My Mum often reminds me how, when i was little, I used to plead with her, constantly, for her to get the old photo albums out, to talk me through each one, slowly, again. She'd resist, gently, remembering how much it would upset us both, seeing the other one upset by memories of things gone and people passed. But I'd promise not to cry this time (more to myself than her), but I'd start to buckle, she'd get upset and so it would be.

We laugh about it now, of course. On the rare occasions that the subject comes up. But there will always be that split-second silence, stillness, between the laughter & the "where were we?"...

I remember some of the old shots from when I used to look at them, when I was little; maybe 4 or 5 years old and randomly since.

I have strange reactions to some of these photos. Some I remember seeing, some I seem to remember being taken. (Like this one.) Looking at them this afternoon (in short controlled bursts), I was surprised at how strongly I seemed to remember one rattle (very cool - white and blue, great handle), my cot (cool pictures on it), an old towel that I was swaddled in all those years ago as a baby, and that I later remember my mum using as I grew up, that my Dad must have used and touched... Such good quality, it lasted decades, even outliving one of us...

Anyway. My Mum tells me that my Dad took this photo.

I think photography - or rather, the love of it - is in my blood. my Mum's family has significant roots in photography.

I'm told my Dad was a keen photographer. This photo was taken with his Voigtlander Bessamatic. (Bessie is sitting beside me now, here, in her worn, warm, loved leather case; having wound her way through the branches of our strange family tree, back to me - 15 odd years since I watched her go, out 'there', falling into other hands - the 'wrong' hands, not my hands, i remember thinking - while knowing too well, that it was just one of a few fine threads that might still lead back to my Dad...

But that's OK. She's come home now.

(linking the title to Rosanne Cash singing her father's song seemed somehow fitting.)