Losing the physical self

There isn’t anything to write about anymore on this website, the time has come to voice my own thoughts elsewhere. Hopefully one day Anita will use it to express herself. People keep asking me for updates but they will have to ask her or the hospital. I can only end with one of my favourite poems and with love.

I have been here before
but when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
the sighing sound,
the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar,
your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,
I knew it all of yore.

Has it been thus before?
And shall not thus time’s eddying flight
Still with our lives our loves restore
In death’s despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

-Dante Gabriel Rossetti (sudden light)

I sit here on the canal bank. My toes skim the water. The sun is lowering more every minute directly into my face, infusing me with warmth, penetrating my soul. A canal boat passes and watching me busily texting the navigator makes a comment about technology and nature. I tell him I’m writing poetry which makes them all laugh. I have come here by cycling gently through my grief. Sometimes the impossible is just that and all you can do is be. As long as you can feel, you are still living. Its not hard to let go, you just have to take your hands from the bars. It worked and now I have found my place.

The water is moving from right to left just enough to be noticed, carried on the gentlest of breezes. The more I settle, the more I hear, the fish and birds spring to life. I dip a toe in the water, it’s cool yet refreshing. I’m beggining to like it, there’s no shock as I would have expected, it just feels lovely. The dark water isn’t murky, just an impenetrable viridian. There’s no urge to swim right now, watching the ripples I create is plenty.

The sun goes down, my soul is enlightened but now can hide in the shadows for a while. The sweep of the canal round the bend beckons, it’s time for home.