The Fact Of The Drowned Poem by Raj Arumugam

it is a grim fact of life,
most reverend sirs
and most elegant ladies
and you most delicate children -
it is an indisputable fact of life
that people drown;
some may have slipped or dropped into a river
unaware
and lost themselves to the anarchy of the waters;
some may have sought to swim across cold waters in winter
as a sort of perverse form of recreation;
some may have drowned comically
but most in great anguish
and with perhaps a week’s intake of water
or perhaps a month’s supply of
one’s share of the earth’s water;
all the same, it is a grim fact of life -
tragic and somber -
but as a matter of fact
people drown;
and then of course
it is the authorities who have to look after
the plain fact
as to recover, investigate and annotate and find causes
and to build the statistics
and conduct post-mortems if necessary;
the body of the drowned is a simple fact –
one has to see to all these grim facts of the matter
but the fact of life is
even in all its serenity and domestic bliss
people actually drown;
and to loved or unloved ones
still on dry land and alive
the corpse is all one has, if retrieved
and it is a cold fact of life
to which curious onlookers
can respond with silence
for it is a reminder one is but delicate
and mostly made of water;
and a fact of which the bereaved must face up to
and which is the immediate legacy of the drowned
before one may claim any ring
or jewelry on the body of the dearest departed
that is, if no one else has got there before;
that too, unfortunately, and like it or not, is a fact of life;
and so learn to look at these facts of life
with cool and calm
and quiet and respect for the fact
for it is,
to repeat oneself,
a grim fact of life;
most reverend sirs
and most elegant ladies
and you most delicate children -
it is an indisputable fact of life
that people drown







(poem based on the painting The Drowned (1867) by Vasily Perov)