“Wild Poppies, Near Argenteuil” (1873)
Claude Monet
________
for Pat
a dear friend passed away recently,
Pat, the mother of my partner, who
passed away himself nearly 30 years
ago, was already of a certain age at
which death follows closely tripping
us up with itches and cramps and
dire debilities as we walk along the
winding road that isn’t that long any
longer
she’d already acquired Alzheimer’s
though she read still, understood,
even poetry, though she could not
remember what had happened
yesterday even, however traumatic,
that she’d fallen the day before, for
instance, and bore still corroborative
angry scratches escaped her, left
her puzzled, though never rattled,
ever compliant
you can forget all you want, Pat, I’d
said to her earlier in her prognosis,
but don’t ever forget I love you
since, during our regular Internet
encounters, along with her husband
on her end, she’s left the conversation
to him, but wraps her arms around
herself and tells me she wants to hug
me, we always end our visit with I love
you’s
when I went to visit her in hospital,
where she’d ended up following more
falls, which indicated eventually dire
complications, I brought her a teddy
bear
here, Pat, I said, I can’t be here always
to hug you, but you can think of me
when you hug this bear
she died a few days later, the last
words we said were, I love you, I
love you, before I flew back home
to Vancouver from Victoria
I was sad, I lit candles, then a day
later I thought, how do I get out from
under this somber cloud, I should
listen for her, I remembered
talk to me, Pat, I’ll hear, I entreated
when my dad died, I’d said, talk to
me, Dad, I’m your son, I’ll hear, and
I did
when his sister died, a beloved aunt,
I’d lit a scented candle inadvertently
in commemoration, when the air
suddenly filled with the aroma of
rosemary, which had wafted in on the
exhalations of the candle to fuse with
my own reveries in epiphanic, verily
transcendental, conversation
adagios, also, always remind me of
John, Pat’s son
talk to me, Pat, say something, I
said to the ether, and listened
last Thursday, at the service, turning
to the last page of the programme
which had been provided, I began to
read her favourite poem
I wandered lonely as a cloud, I read
but couldn’t make it through the next
line, tears welling up in my eyes, my
mom, who was with me, holding my
hand
thank you, Pat, I said, overcome with
emotion, this poem would be her
teddy bear to me
Richard
________________
Daffodils
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: –
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth
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