Old Woman

We see you every day
on the newsreels
anonymous
as if a human being
ever were anonymous
a face like the worn map of tragedy
your hands reaching out
to the TV camera
begging for water, food
or beseeching
in some unrecognisable, meaningless
local language, or
cursing an enemy not visible
who made a ruin of your home

or being carried unceremoniously
between urgent hands in some material
from a bed that is no longer there

or sitting bemused by life
awaiting some unnamed help beyond request
though seldom accompanied by your son
who found a greater cause
than home, or age; and somewhere else…

or, in the occasional poem --
tended, your paper skin and jutting hipbones
not unlike some starved chicken’s carcase
described with painful love
as if you only lived a living life
in the past tense,
beyond the verses, between the metaphors

and yet, if we could only find words
to describe what’s living still,
where pride hides, pride
too precious now in grief to speak,
how you love those who are not here,

and yet you’re there, alive or dead
patient, proud, silent, unnamed
in every newsreel, every child, every poem
that has ever been written

and I salute you

Bob Blackwell
Your words have bite, your tribute for a lonely wife or mother, who is the worst casualty of a cruel world of man. There are to many in our world.

heterodynemind
Wow, this gave me chills. You said so much that is often unsaid except by over sensationalist tv journalists.

Fay Slimm
The essence of the spirit in humanity can always be found rising beside the smoke of life's surrounding rubble and this verse points to that as the gem we should see inside the shell. Words like pride, patience and agape' love will be there if we look. A glimpse beyond is what this piece inspires -- thank you Michael.

 

poeticpiers
Powerful commentary on the here and now of a troubled world

David Taylor
A worthy entrance is declared with first poem, oh so fair, of aged female form; not here, but there, on that screen of life.. And now here, in verse, someone’s mother, wife? You have revealed her well, what’s real behind time’s veil.

sonetta
a beautiful tribute to that unknown face...who speaks to all of us who care....

york2frisco
well written tribute ... " as if you only lived a living life in the past tense" -my favorite line. I look forward to reading more of your writings.