On The Verge

Even on very bright days such as these

She looks into an abyss and she sees

Old age and death - inevitable,

 both, and infinitely sad.

You cannot choose. And so you think: 

As long as I'm alive and growing old,

I will see others die, while I remain and grieve.

Survivors have to live with being bereaved.

One more gone and one more gone

And after all these years you miss someone -

What would they have thought of this,

And what would he have said to that?

You dream - a chance of meeting up again?

A dying hope, a deadened wish, a dead end.

The Fear

Is this the fear that mother felt,

That soldier's widow, keeping up his family's tradition

She reared her only child to join the army one day too

Is this the fear, that little girl whose father's at the front,

"Grandmother, is my Papa staying in your house these days?"

Is this the fear that Mother felt in 1947?

She saw them burn a man alive

A knife and chilli powder at the front door her defence

Her baby daughter sleeping through the August afternoons.