Too Soon

Last night she tweeted,

'Tested positive for COVID,'

this morning she tweeted,

“Very dopey’,

by afternoon a friend’s tweet

told me she was gone.

 

My spirit rebelled. 

I called out in shock and grief,

gutted. Very late to the party,

a Spirit of Wisdom came.

 

'Listen. 

'Hear echoes of lives touched,

potential sparked,

cheese and lippy shared,

online wisdom

conjuring vivacity and joy from fear.

 

'Watch her soul

leap across the sand

and, reaching the waves,

turn one more time

to take in life’s fullness,

pressed down and overflowing,

then dive headlong, seaward

into immortality’s sunset.

‘In your eyes departure

may seem a disaster

but she is at peace,

her hope full of immortality.'

 

For my online, in life friend Bex who died 18^thFebruary 2021, far too young. She loved God,
wild swimming, digital space, lipstick, cheese and many other things. The poem quotes from the discourse on death in the Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 3. What seems disaster in this life becomes the birth pang of immortality. This does not diminish the tragedy of a life cut short but opens a wider perspective in which to contemplate the mystery of a life and death, well-lived and well-died, something I think Bex embodied through her faith, her courage and her capacity for zestful living . 

 

©Janet Henderson 23^rdFebruary 2021