Requiem for

my wife,

Kay Carmichael

 

David Donnison

 

The writer, broadcaster, educator, social worker and reformer Kay Carmichael died on 26 December 2009. 'I felt a need,' said her husband David Donnison, 'to put down words to help me find a way through a veil of tears. Although I had not published poems before and never intended these to be published I instinctively resorted to poetic forms to convey the pain and passion, and to seek the sharper edge to thought that poetry makes possible'. David wrote 22 poems which are collected in the volume, 'Requiem', published privately. We have selected four.

As Death Impends

As death impends self-centred I become,
battening down the hatches
as the roar of loss approaches.

Grief seeps deep through my bones;
the busy crowd irrelevant –
citizens of a distant, half-heard world.

Time disintegrates. This tea and toast,
so carefully carried, fills all eternity.
Next week? Next month...? Who cares?

30 November 2009

 

Alone

And now...?

Small things remain the same:
wash the dishes, fold the clothes,
tend the murmuring stove.
Trivially busy, I rove about;
homeless in my home;
haunted at every step.
The door code? Her birthday date.
Pictures? Sculptures?
I remember where we bought each one,
why she liked them, what she said.

Her slippers peep from under the bed.

30 January 2010

 

Scattering Your Ashes

I come to this rock
where you would sit
to say goodbye
to your life and mine.

I come to pray –
not for you but to you –
seeking a share
in your lonely gallantry.

Gazing here together
to the Atlantic horizon,
'There is no path' you said.
'We make the path by walking.'

Now I must walk,
travelling light,
till our dust mingles
in these flowing tides.

Rolling slowly homewards
I drive sedately.
No need for speed.
No-one to get home to.

22 February 2010

 

Postscript

Thought you wrote some poems?

You were wrong.
Powered by pain,
half scream, half song,
they kept your head to wind,
drove you through the storm.

The poems wrote you.

19 June 2010