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_____________________"Do not quote.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
