Poem 73: Aunty Rene

(This poem continues my decision this month to post poems I wrote fifty plus years ago – this week’s poem was written around about when I was 15!)

My aunty died about thirteen years ago.
For thirteen years she has not known the
warm sun and pale breeze I now feel.
She has not known the thirteen
evenings, the afternoons, the blackbird peace and
childhood memories that swing around every spring.
As a spinster, she has no one to love her after death,
no one to be remembered by, and
not much to be remembered for.
She was just an ordinary aunty.

And I thought of all the ordinary people
who mean nothing;
whose names do not lie hidden
even in buried archives.
I thought of all these people,
once so wonderful, so friendly,
and now indifferently forgotten…

Oh what is life? and what is life? and life?…
My aunty never died,
she has only been forgotten.

Feel the warm sun and pale breeze,
Sing to the universe,
Tomorrow you may feel no more.
Tomorrow –
Tomorrow you may feel no more.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.