Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Scattering my mom's ashes at Kalk Bay

Kalk Bay harbour
On a still, mild winter's day in June we scattered my mom's ashes into the sea at Kalk Bay. She loved the sea and it was here that she wished to "join the breeze" when she died. I wrote this poem a month later.










Scattering your ashes at Kalk Bay


             For J.F.P 1947-2010

I’m heavy over the rocky outcrop for the weight of my heart
But you are light in my palm and through my fingers
as though you've filtered like time through an hourglass
Lighter, now, than even the mild winter air, sky and sea
That had called us out today to blend you with it.

And what gifts has the fire left for the blue?
Your bones are powdered, mine are broken
A bag of stars and shells to replace a body

And from my hand I seem to have tethered a spirit
to Heaven’s cradle:
A scatter of distances from womb to horizon

A grief beads and drips into a rock pool at my feet –
I feel I have lost a jewel among the sea-fern and abalone;
Here we keep our silence close to our chests,
Burrowing deep within us, as heavy as God;
But you -

You are light now, lighter than even the song
"Time After Time"
Wisping from the Harbour House restaurant
as we clamber in our armour, back up
to the path yellowed by the flowering Freesias.


Janice Purdon c1972


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