Virtue and the Death of the Grandmother
I.
What is your virtue and
what has it become?
A process.
A bird.
Stout, with stringy flesh,
tough, peppered skin.
Oh do no,
do not eat that turkey--
she's barely cold.
What are we doing here?
Our lives,
because we are not the one dead
will go on, but not now no not now no.
Amuse her! Amuse him!
She is my muse and I refuse to go on.
II.
Not now no not now no.
_____________________"But yes. The past is for those like me, though not quite
_____________________cold, cold I will be. And soon."
No not now no not now no!
_____________________"Your virtue, stout as it is, must grow stouter, must become _____________________more. Continue becoming. Go on."
Be coming and going?
_____________________"Yes. I am growing colder and you are growing stouter
_____________________and fatter. Do not limp."
Oh do not, I can not, oh what not can I say, oh how to end the awful wait?
_____________________"The wait will be light. It is the dark that will not be. It is
_____________________the now that I have that you will lament. Go. Become."
Become? Become? Not now! My God, my God why has thou--"
_____________________"Do not quote. Become. Go. Go on. You will find yourself
_____________________stout if you move. Go become."
But what of you?
_____________________"My self stiffens and grows colder. Come now, be going."
But what of becoming?
_____________________"Be coming and going."
gbs 11-6-06
5 comments:
i dug it and i dig it - no graverobbing puns intended. i still think the dialogue is strongest, and maybe so strong as to weaken the first half, but the balance seems about right here. good work, conversely.
Well, I liked the turkey part best myself, especially as it is illuminated by, "The wait will be light. It is the dark that will not be."
I'm not sure what the turkey does for you, but for me, it takes me to my grandmother's kitchen where all foods were precious, especially poultry and rye bread.
And the conversation reminds me of days when I was a senior in high school and shared a last year of mischievous partnership with my grandmother. My cousins called her debbah, but I just called her nana.
Beautiful verse.
one question: where are the tags, yo? every consummate reader of this site knows the tags are the most fun part of these poems! hook us up!!
I read this poem to some of the folks at my mother's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not sure that they quite grasped it upon first reading, sign.
Hey--I've just seen that comment, brd. Awesome! Thanks.
I've added part numbers. I don't know why.
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