Poetry by Mairi Murphy

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​Twenty years and twenty days 

since you went, slept away beside him in your bed
(didn’t want it any other way, no fuss, no public rosary said);
now it’s his turn, lonely in a hospital bed without you
he coughs and waits, coughs and waits: come back for him.

You’ll be annoyed he did so well without you, so
don’t hold it against him: we helped him cope
you know you couldn’t have managed without him
even if we’d brought the world - useless to you without him.

Heaven’s time is not ours, a score of years - nothing 
to eternity, eternal waiting for him, so come, 
his cough, his temperature, his discomfort your gateway, 
already the room is filling, rattle-ready: come

I tell him that I love him, touch hurts now.
Cool his skin, tell him not to struggle anymore, moisten
lollipop- sponged mouth damping his occasional words
intermittent as the rain outside, 2am-quiet

We wait: our guardian angels
talk low, interrupt, confer only 
what is sensed, unspoken; between
one open world, another closing

something final, yet infinite, this vast domain
waiting, waiting for completion to arrive, 
a love as big as God, 
for you, 
a love as big as life.




Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

So we sit. I don’t know what to do. It seems silly doing nothing, but nothing won’t change anything. Yet we’re looking for a change. Anything. Anything to call the family. We’ve all been here. En masse. Dribs and drabs. Singly. All together. Emily with earphones under a table. All talking. All quiet. Amy in doctor mode, in grandchild mode, checking drips, removing drips, wanting him peaceful. Quieting gurgling sounds. He coughs and we don’t know what to do. Awake, rheumy eyes look at me as I say  ‘I love you.’ Asleep, I say, ‘Let go, where are you going but heaven?’ Birds screech chases outside the window. Aeroplanes zoom to another place, leave longing behind. Constant ‘Help me’ from another room. I don’t know what to do. Say the rosary. Implore. Wait as heaven gurgles-rattles, warm-cold. Jesus on the other side please answer: don’t let a privilege become a chore. Comfortable, yes-no-yes Maybe. Let him sleep. If he grimaces he needs more pain relief. He is filling up now, coughing so. Laboured death becomes birth. Birth becomes laboured. Eternity is born in death. Right-so. Right so. Tony comes in and offers breakfast: porridge, orange juice. They change his position – tell us what’s normal – this is normal. What passes for normal. The young can’t be normal in the only way they know, by acting normal. Which in the circumstances appears abnormal, but you know. Alright so. Ok, so. I feel useless, detached. To be close to horrific. Detach with love. Type because I need to busy my hands. My husband’s hands enclose his. We wait. Watch many types of breathing. There should only be one type of breathing – the no-noticeable, non-negotiable type. Listen for footsteps at the door. In and out all day. Turn, suction, position. Dr. Malcolm asks us if we want him to do anything. Francis comes to say goodbye: Granda wakes to say I love you. We take our son for the long, lonely bus journey to Birmingham to work. Lunch in Concert Hall Café, full of graduates from Caledonian Uni. O Happy Day. Head back, time passes, I fall asleep with my head on the bed rails, go home to sleep. Dad, anointed, smells of myrrh. His breathing is smoother. Sinead cries going away. We sit reminisce. The sun sinks, full frontal glow. Light skims the hills, not raging yet but soon, soon. Propped up, freshly shaved, he hears us. The room is darker now, the light outside illuminates the underside of the clouds, mustard grey. We wait, breathing shallow. Twenty to ten. We sit and wait.




Requiescat in Pace

between light and dark
between the turning of the year
and its vanishing, I think of you

November brings an empty threshold
a lonely place at my table
Christmas dinner without you

a spiritual sadness, this sad translation
soft and quiet, soft and quiet here:
a pilgrimage to mark the loss of something beautiful

a heart with no key, how can the very heart of you
not beat, how can you not beat?
dark wisdom, dark wisdom here

a mother without a father, not ready
to be grown up, not ready to take over
I’m lost without you, lost

between light and dark
between the turning of the year 
and its vanishing, I think of you

​


​Mairi Murphy graduated last autumn from Glasgow University with a Masters in Creative Writing. Whilst there she was awarded the 2016 Alistair Buchan Prize for poetry for which two of her poems were also shortlisted. Recently her poems have been published in ‘Shetland Create’, ‘From Glasgow to Saturn’ and ‘Crooked Holster (an anthology of crime). She is the editor of ‘Glasgow Women Poets’ published by Four-em Press in 2016, of which she is the co-founder.