Stepping Into the Ambulance that Would Take Her to the Thames Valley Hospice

Margaret Arbuckle Paterson Graham Whidden

When I love thee not,

Chaos is come again.

~ Shakespeare, Othello

“Courage is life, living.  Life is change; change is suffering; the will to suffer is courage.”  R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, 263

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

While she moved up the little steps alone

To enter her new life, she turned and said,

“Tell everyone that though I’ve always known

This world is wonderful, I know instead

Now that the universe itself will claim

Me, us, us all to be a part of all

Forever,”* knowing that the point was flame,

The crematorium.  She did not fall

For nurses’ lies that she was going for

Best expert treatment for her cancer pain

(Implying she’d be back quite soon, more

Roses in her garden, back again).

  She stepped towards death as calm as bright June flowers,

    As if there never had been ice in showers.

 ~ Phillip Whidden   

*Yes, these were not her exact words.  The sonnet extrapolates their meaning.