Eurpa Poets' Gazette No. 69, January 2010

Crankypants
"Crankypants has gone," she said. "He’s nesting.
George has gone, is he nesting, too?"
Soon she will go.
She doesn’t miss them - she knows they’re nesting.
When she goes - who will miss her?
When she goes - will they return to accept the crumbs from someone else?
Crankypants and George have both gone
to the rookery, we think. The weather is wild
and the seas reach with Neptune’s greed onto the garden that she worked so lovingly on for years.
Daisies hang by a thread to life, on low tide and visible to the eye, they blink with hope that soon the sun will come and gentle water will let them have their peace again.
She has peace while waiting for her slow death. She is content, wants life, but as her life is, I’d want death.
Is it because I’m younger and naive, or has she gone too far to take control of such a powerful thing?
As the finality of death approaches - we and Crankypants, and George are absent more often as the ugliness of life in death is grim.
She will wait to see them both again when spring with its air of velleity and anticipated joy of sunshine and warmth brings positivity to all.
Crankypants and George will come to say their last farewells to her in spring.
Or maybe summer will lead them on a journey. We’ll never know. She’ll be with the boys, together, as friends, nesting, feeding, or to lie dead.
We are left with memories of that love and with arm outstretched, throw crumbs in case George and Crankypants return, bringing her back, too.
© Ruth Stendrup September 2009