Tag: Grief

Two and a half years ago my mother Jean received a terminal heart diagnosis.  Since that time she & I became very close, as I helped support her to face and to prepare for her death, saying, doing and singing all the things I would want to do if I were able to be present to priestess her death but which was unlikely to happen.  [She did indeed die alone in her own bed, of a heart attack as we expected, at Lammas 2015.]  Of course this led me into preparing myself to lose her.  Mother Song came out of our shared process and my anticipatory grieving last October.  I sang it to her over the phone and recorded it for her.

Cold autumn pavements carry mourning,
your whispered voice drifts on the breeze,
but I can’t catch the words you send me,
like dying leaves lost to the trees.

Leafless trees twist beneath
lachrymose skies, nakedness
stark defiance to wind bequeathed
by Winter’s bleak excess.