Mortality Poem by Jeremy Nel

From dust were we created
Says our Lord, who gave us life and form
Alas to dust He will us return
And as our souls frolic in heav’n
On earth those left behind, our dust will mourn.

In thy womb was I conceived, dear mother
And shielded there till birth
Thou guarded me as would no other
Coaxing laughter from my mirth
And drying tears flowing from my fears.

And now, as old age has approached
Thy body has begun to show the wrack and ruination
The strains from life and living in thy eyes reflected
The hardship and the tribulation in thy memory graven
But, alas, so too be the damage from the smoke.

Oft we admire the grandeur of the ruins
Was once a stately home they say
That over time through whate’er causes
Now lie before us in decay
So too with age our bodies at the edges fray.

But dear mother with abuse I fear
Your body has done more than fray.
Alas, it has started to unravel
So slowly now life uncoils from you each day
To melt away. Life in each precious little droplet.

We love you dearly mother
It is unbearable to watch this slow decay
Rends at our hearts. Our sorrow silently we bear
Unshown, now it we have to hide and not relay
To thee as once we carefree could proclaim.

Had but ne’er that grey smoke
Lurched into thy lungs from that white wand
So elegantly in the fingers twirled
As unknown the poison with thy lungs did bind
And thus thy body had infested and decayed

Now, as you strain for each breath of air
Through those same lips that sucked the smoke
The fingers that held the cigarette with flair
Now frail, lies listless fitfully to jerk
As your body heaves, desperate to breathe.

And then, finally it ends
With one last gasp your eyes upwardly gaze
To see what we cannot see, far distant lands
Where others who had gone before you in the haze
You see, then reach out, and leave us be.

4 Aug 2009
To Mum - 9 July 1938 to 14 May 2009. RIP