Since I was young, I was attracted to poetry and stories about death. Not horror. Not violence. Just death. I started writing about death and I still do. I write about the idea of death, what it means and what it doesn’t. The finality surrounding it but also the beginning. The realistic nature of it and the joy and hope in it. The absolute truth that we are all going to meet our demise one day.
I was recently reading through my 1996 journal. I’ve been working on my memoir and old journals are an abundant source of information about thoughts, events and emotions that, after so many years, the mind forgets. Or maybe stores away until the appropriate time. Either way, I love diving into my old writing to see what young Trish was doing and thinking in that other lifetime.
The content I’m sharing with you contains three poems (only one of them is mine), thoughts about death and memories of my brother. Without another word, take a glimpse into my Autumn 1996 journal.
The Only Poem
This is the only poem
I can read.
I am the only one
can write it.
I didn’t kill myself
when things went wrong.
I didn’t turn
to drugs or teaching.
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn’t sleep
I learned to write.
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me.
–By the amazing Leonard Cohen
Death
I
Death is here and death is there
Death is busy everywhere.
All around, within, beneath
Above is death–and we are death.
II
Death has set his mark and
seal
On all we are and all we feel
On all we know and all fear
III
First our pleasures die–and then
Our hopes and then our fear–
and when
those are dead, the debt is due
dust claims dust–and we die too.
IV
All things that we love and cherish
like ourselves must fade and per-
ish;
Such is our rude mortal lot–
Love itself would, did they not.
–By the amazing Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death is one of the most fascinating aspects of life. This poem struck me like lightning the first time I read it. It’s simple but completely true. This poem pulls me into thinking about things and realizing that life is so short. We must love in life and we must respect death. Death is a living thing.
***
I think of those mornings
we’d get up early
and run into the kitchen
to begin our long day.
I remember those lunches
throwing food and laughing
about making mom mad.
I smile about those evenings
we’d always run outside
get lost on purpose
just for the adventure.
And all those nights
too tired to do anything
but watch our favorite shows.
What happened when you turned old?
Do you now remember
thinking back when we were
brother and sister?
Will you cherish all those
years we spent together
having fun?
I don’t know you
or where you are now
but tonight sitting
by our swings
I wonder
I wonder
my once brother
Do you remember? –10-4-96
Yes, I do wonder and I do miss him but I only wish him happiness. That’s all I can do. And remember.
The poems by Cohen and Shelley were obviously my favorites at the time. I still adore them. Thoughts about death, suicide, sleeplessness, writing, love–it’s all in these poems. I connect to them. I feel them. I copied them in my journal because they excited me and inspired me to write my own poem. But that particular poem wasn’t about death–it was about my brother. My absent brother. The brother who was briefly in my life and then was gone. Not by death but by choice. It all comes together for me with these poems. Who I was then and who I still am. Of course we can change, and definitely for the better, but the young woman who wrote that poem and those thoughts is still here with me. She’s helping me write this post. She wants me to see the past, understand it and appreciate and love everything I am today. It’s so much. Memoir is so much.
Thank you for allowing me to write and share this post with you. I had no intention of writing anything today, but something or someone called me to pick up my journal and then I had no choice. It all just came out and I’m embracing it. Poetry, death, my brother and writing. It’s all there.
The Second Chance Writer 