After The Funeral Ii - 0208 Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

The Past departed with the last forced mourners, whose facial expressions, with their tremolo of tics, tell-tale suppressions, told of fear. Tension in tightened corners of mouth and eyes. terror, surprise, trembling, cries, each would disguise anguish masked, questions unanswered here, unwelcome intimations of mortality.

The Past departed, partly of its own accord, parts, shut out, ignored, roles played out as few could yet afford to flout morality. Time's uncertainties by Time itself underscored. Departure leaving absence of feeling, absence of feeling hermetically sealing from mind and face all trace of childhood innocence.

In place of innocence and grace, Loss, emptiness! Emptiness here an imperfect vacuum open unto wilderness of self-delusion of strength, which, all the more fragile for its brave face, is self-defeating. A vacuum is strong, can do no wrong, being internally self sufficient.

The Past departed; at first sight seeming to ease out emotion. threat squeezing, freezing, unappeasingly diseasing. The surface calm afforded no balm, no outlet for the lotion that soothes the spirit, dowsing suffering and pain, incorporating the magic potion which to love and light restores the soul through tears. Tears, in childhood and advancing years, cleanse fears.

Superficial calm masks the rampant tiger of repression whose fire eyes prowl through the layers of sensation to plough the deep recesses of the mind, exploding the barriers which we, in our blindness, instinctively erect. Too soon we lose the key to unlock them, thus we restrain Love's passage to the world.

Yet, although fears increase, prevent release, distort the soul, fragment the whole, there too are feeling forces, secret sources which well up and chart twin courses down the cheeks from which the heart's resources spring, may bring relief, sing peace.

The Past departed with the last forced mourners, Their dark impressions cold and drear, conscience unclear. Unwelcome intimations of mortality pervasively intruded, could not disappear. Release was a luxury few could afford. Terror, surprise, tension in tightened corners of mouth and eyes. The dreaded shadow loomed as surface distress, masking primal self-pity, angrily welled up, and, for the living, shed a tear.

(10 January 2010)