Thursday, October 18, 2012

Sonnet written while the mortician works


"Do you need any more time before I proceed?"
asks the tall black man as he dons black gloves
having arranged the gurney to hold the thin body
of my father born back in nineteen-twenty-five
 

do I need any more time? can that be yet arranged?
another year perhaps? or just ten minutes for a final
conversation? do I need a little window opening
in the so-solid walls of time world fate & law?

"No" I reply having already intoned the prayer
"O Parvardigar! the Preserver & Protector of All!"
and let a thin color card with Meher Baba's visage
rest all night & all the day on the so-silent form

of Benjamin Samuel Israel   my father & friend
time as much as we need still flowing downstream



4 comments:

Mahoo said...

Dearest David:

We are thinking about you and Samuel.
What a gem you and him are. Sending Baba's Prayers to both. Samuel left in Baba's New life time. How precious.

Your Friends at Meher Abode.

David Raphael Israel said...

Thanks (Mahoo & others who have responded, through other means, to this poem).

Sending a link (for this poem) to a friend, I appended a note -- and think I'll copy same here, by way of a minor explanation.

========

I wrote:

The "mortician" in the poem's title actully refers simply to the man who was sent (by the mortuary, who are responsible for cremation) to pick up the body.

Whether such a delivery-guy is technically a "mortician" could seem at least a semantic question, but is really more of a needless tangent.

Vasudev Murthy said...

Deepest Sympathies, David

Indran Amirthanayagam said...

This is a devastating beautiful tribute. Indran