Right Angles To Reality

[This poem is dedicated to my mother who passed away on 10th January 2023. A very gifted individual herself, she was the ultimate source of my strength, inspiration and creativity.]

You flew off in a single straight line,

Straight as the crow flies, and vanished into

the radiant light - cutting clean through space and time,

At right angles to reality.

You were in my arms, and I would not let you go.

I turned your face away from the brightness that screens

the other side - the hideous, blank façade

 

that drops like a pall of doom - the veil between planes.

Long ago, toiling in fierce labor to bring me forth,

you breathed life into my tiny lungs, (sweet air, like a heap

of fresh cut roses!) with your first kiss. I held out my arms to you,

Your love, all your pains, and made them mine.

I took the roses with the thorns and pressed them to my heart.

I refused to face the veil! Although it lurked by the wings, a

Surreptitious beckoning, a grim reminder at every step,

of a reality beyond the pales of flesh and spirit, I refused,

For you were with me down the years, as I was with you,

holding you close, cradling your hopes and fears,

Through the laughter and the tears, every step of the way!

But as your chest heaved with its few rasping, gritty,

breaths, all our memories burnt out, one by one, reduced to 

a fistful of ashes, I knew. I had to let you fly off.

At right angles to reality.