Blue Dream Magic by Konrad Bilo

I
Prepared was I or thought I was at least.
Often we spoke of it with those held dear.
I named the hope and played the public priest
And tried to hide my confidential fear.

A doubtful muse that told me of my need
For one to see me safely through the gloom,
A lie it told to force me to concede
That loneliness will be my future doom.

And when you gasped for your last breath, I prayed
That I could know that God was in this loss,
To feel his peace and not to be afraid.
I faltered though and only saw the cross.

Despair has often gripped me in these days
That doubtful muse has whispered in my ear,
“Better was she than you in all her ways,
How now to live like her without her near.”

II
But now you come to me in dreams each night,
Your spectre gifts me with unhelpful hope
As it presents a false persistent fight
And in my sleeping world, you live and cope.

There is no grief in my nocturnal life,
For it is there you breathe and speak to me.
I get to hold your face, my fearless wife,
And tell again my love, my joy, my glee.

Laments I made and fears I felt are gone,
My doubtful muse is silenced for this time.
In this shadow story I cheer you on
To turn the tide of Death’s unreal crime.

And how I wish that this new truth were true
And your untimely passing was not past.
It’s here we make our marriage vows anew
To stay as one in mind and heart and last.

III
When I awake you become my pillows
And this reality seems stark to take.
The tears, they flow, the crashing dread billows,
A dawning wish that I was not awake.

But in my dream you are not free from pain
You still must fight infection there and so
For selfish ends I long for you in vain;
Despite the hurt, it’s right to let you go.

And yes, my doubtful muse spoke truth, in part,
I do still fear my loneliness to come,
What kind of days can I now seek to start?
But I still trust my God will not stay dumb.

I am still his and always his to keep
Or lost am I in loss, no hope, no point.
The resurrection wakes us from our sleep,
The day is his, and for him to anoint.

A week has passed and the waves are slowing,
I cry less often but more deep the sobs.
Memories are pleasant again and robs
Not the sweetness of my peace that’s growing.
I still stumble when some news worth showing
Cannot be shared with you, my heart, it throbs,
When I complete those small trivial jobs;
Who do I tell? Who’ll think it worth knowing?
When I see something that would make you laugh
Or buy the perfume you liked me wearing
Who can I share these with on your behalf?
Who do I now capture in photograph?
These small moments so easy in sharing
Now a painful note on your epitaph.

Written a week after my wife’s death on Friday 13th July 2018.

Gently you hatched me from my toughened shell,
Into the nest of your accepting love.
You countered my fear with ‘all will be well’,
And raised my head to see the skies above.
You talked of soaring when I feared the fall
And helped me to dream of my own first flight.
You preened me and my fledgling wings withal,
Tended my darkness with your quenchless light.
Never satisfied til I spread my wings,
You comforted me out on to the edge,
All the time secretly cutting my strings.
O, how silently you fulfilled your pledge
To honour and protect me til I grew;
Then with a jump you showed me how one flew.

Written on Tuesday 10th July 2018, reflecting on what my wife had done for me in preparation for her death.

The Breakthrough by Donna Bolam

You plan the journey and study the maps,
You speak to experts and check your bootstraps,
You pack your bags and predict the weather,
To ensure that you keep it together.

But there’s no preparation like being on the terrain,
Where the wind is erratic and the landscape, inhumane,
The darkness disorientates and knocks you from your route;
Where directions get disrupted and your instincts go mute.

But even this uncertainty can be prepared for,
You can take the diversions as chances to explore.
Inner storms, however, disrupt at deeper levels
Your secure sanctum is inhabited by devils.

…

I scream my stomach into my mouth
And sting my eyes with salted tears.
The breath I pleaded to give her
Is lost in my throat and suffocates.
The pressure in my skull, a form of comfort,
The searing pain, a distraction from the ceaseless desert inside.
All the platitudes and clichés gives a stab of selfish temptation,
They solicit me to lose myself into the solitary abyss.
“Leave me alone!”
“I can’t give you the words you don’t know how to say!
I don’t have them, so stop silently insinuating I am secreting them!”
“This pain is unique and you will never know!”

…

Your pain may be particular but never unique,
Share your pain because it’s pain and it makes us all weak.
My child, help is at hand if you have the eyes to look,
My son came to find you when you felt your most forsook.

And my son knows this country well for he has journeyed through.
Made this inner wilderness a home and shares it with you.
He conquered that controlling demon, that herald of death;
He fought him with everything even to his dying breath.

The path may be fearful but you can pass,
There may be darkness but it will not last.
The wind rages, bites but there will be peace.
Here can be a place where your strivings cease.

Written Sunday 8th July 2018 two days after my wife died.

Resurrection by Bonnie Bruno

O, the taste of resurrection
Is surprising in its normality.
It does not impress itself
Upon the senses,
Nor forces itself to the front.
Rather it infuses through all
And permeates the palate
In drawing out the goodness
Of the corruptible ingredients.
It is in the beauty of the usual,
The wonder of the common place.
It shines through the stained glass
Of ordinary and regular.
Like salt, it collaborates with bland,
Supporting them to shine afresh.
In new ways that which was boring
Becomes a delicacy.
Resurrection power exerts itself
Not to overpower but to empower,
To bring life to dullness,
Colour to drab.
It works through other
And refuses to take centre stage alone.
Resurrection is elusive,
For it will not be seen solitary,
Solo or unescorted.
You see it hidden
In the elegance and grace
Of things which we don’t call heaven.
It is comeliness itself.
It is an aspect attached.
If you’re not looking for it
You will not find it,
But once you’ve glimpsed it
You’ll never lose it.

Written whilst in hospital during the final days of my wife’s life on Friday 29th June 2018.

In the long watch of that dread, darkened night,
New depths of waiting I unwelcome find.
As uncertainty continues to fight,
It’s caustic mist fogs and makes me blind.
I hold her hand and pray once more,
Conflicting petitions spluttered to God;
Worn tropes I’ve heard a thousand times or more
Crashing together forming phrasings odd.
Expectant well-wishers form a background
Reminding me of my forgotten cue,
But the lines are not so easily found
As, muddled, I venture far out of view.
But here I find new wells to sustain me,
Clandestine beauty for my eyes to see.

Written in the early morning on the day my wife died on Friday 6th July 2018.

The ceaseless tone that tells that meds are done
Calls out to nurses full of love, full-stretched
But quick as lightning sure of foot they run,
Each one on the stately monument etched.
The over worked and under paid clichè
Too soon upon our lips for truth to ring
Too comforting to challenge those who say
That worth can be measured like everything.
These faithful friends from four corners serve us
With tireless strain they wash, comfort and feed
Oft praised, extolled, lauded for their service
Critiqued by others for unproven greed
Still human and mortal, fragile and free;
Shows how powerful their compassion can be.

Written for the 70th anniversary of the NHS whilst I was staying in hospital on Thursday 5th July 2018.

Walking Through the Wood by Daphne Poiro

We walk through the wood,
You and I.
Sometimes side by side
Other times, single file.
The overgrowth that lines our path
Often encroach on our fellowship
And force you to follow me,
Or me, you.
The journey is long,
The wood, large.
When night arrives
It is scary
And the end is both near
And far, simultaneously.
But we continue to walk
By a different light;
A light of instinct
And of trust.
A light that glows
Even on the darkest paths.
Yes, we walk through a wood,
You and I
And our gentle Light
And there is no one
I’d rather walk with.

Written whilst in hospital with my wife a week before she died on Friday 29th June 2018.

Help me to pray,
“But if not…”
In my struggles,
Overwrought,
A depth of faith
“In our God…”
Who can deliver us
And our feet, shod
With the gospel
Of his peace:
A trust in him
That will not cease.

Help me to pray,
“But if not…”
When prayers unanswered
Draw my thought
To fear, “O king…”
Of whatever form
And I panic
Within the storm.
Deeply sleeps
My King, my Lord,
In the tumult,
Seems safe aboard.

Help me to pray,
“But if not…”
When I feel
I am forgot.
When my heart
Demands from you
My deep desires
Of what you should do.
You have been
And always will
Be my comfort,
My soul to still.

Help me to pray,
“But if not…”
When all is lost
And hope is shot.
My love for you
Does not depend
On what I see
Or comprehend
Of how you comply
To my fallible will.
So be my comfort
And my soul to still.

Help me to pray,
“But if not…”

Written as I began to transition from praying for healing to preparing for the death of my wife on Wednesday 4th July 2018.

My heart in the wild by AnneMarie Foley

Trust is waiting without distraction.
Trust is ‘not doing’ with intention.
Trust is an internal pursuit
Without external vision.
Trust is a form of knowing
Through total indecision.
Trust is travelling
Painfully upstream,
Trust is a rupture
Of a profound pipe-dream.
Trust is spiralling down into darkness
Yet perceiving a lifting into lightness.
Trust is watching torment convulse uncontrolled,
Allowing it its death-throws as it takes a stranglehold.
Trust is a weapon, illogical to domination.
Trust is an avoiding of quick-fix adulation.
Trust is the gentle reassurance,
A husband’s comfort through endurance.
Trust is sitting, silent, seeking.
No need for words or speaking.
Trust allows the other to play
Knowing your turn will come one day
And that there’s a time for things.
Trust, in the discord, sings.

Written as I watched my wife struggle to fight an infection on Sunday 1st July 2018.