My father-in-law died recently.
In my remote studies,
How they had died
And how they had looked
In the after-life of the laboratory,
Scraped and examined
Like a rare fish out of water;
And when I saw you
In your last, leanest hours,
Skin as burnished as polished leather,
Eyes shut and sunken like buried treasure,
Hands clasped tight as if in painful prayer,
Breath as shallow as a new spring,
I saw you as a bog-person,
Part heroic, part sacrificial,
Part human, part mystic,
Between earth and heaven,
Pointing to the longitude of love.
Chris Fernie.2006
Poetry by Chris Fernie
Read 516 times
Written on 2006-10-15 at 22:35
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Dead Reckoning
I'd read about bog-peopleIn my remote studies,
How they had died
And how they had looked
In the after-life of the laboratory,
Scraped and examined
Like a rare fish out of water;
And when I saw you
In your last, leanest hours,
Skin as burnished as polished leather,
Eyes shut and sunken like buried treasure,
Hands clasped tight as if in painful prayer,
Breath as shallow as a new spring,
I saw you as a bog-person,
Part heroic, part sacrificial,
Part human, part mystic,
Between earth and heaven,
Pointing to the longitude of love.
Chris Fernie.2006
Poetry by Chris Fernie
Read 516 times
Written on 2006-10-15 at 22:35
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text
