was just now reading back through poetry posts to find something to share in class today, and I came across this poem we talked about, which feels almost like an answer or antidote to the horror of decay, because it looks with love
Yes! What a great re-find. What did your students think of it?
(I don't know when the terror of bodies with no one in them began to change, except that it must have happened by the time my grandmother died when I was fifteen, because the last time I saw her was in the hospital, and even though it is not part of Jewish mourning for the bereaved to be part of the chevra kadisha who wash and wrap the body for burial, I hated the fact that it felt like she had just disappeared into the hospital, never to return. With my grandfather, twelve years ago, I sat with my mother for the two and a half days in a different hospital that turned out to be his deathwatch and it felt like the right thing to do, because it was real. I could see when he stopped being under his skin. And I still hate modern practices of embalming, because they feel like lying about death.)
no subject
Yes! What a great re-find. What did your students think of it?
(I don't know when the terror of bodies with no one in them began to change, except that it must have happened by the time my grandmother died when I was fifteen, because the last time I saw her was in the hospital, and even though it is not part of Jewish mourning for the bereaved to be part of the chevra kadisha who wash and wrap the body for burial, I hated the fact that it felt like she had just disappeared into the hospital, never to return. With my grandfather, twelve years ago, I sat with my mother for the two and a half days in a different hospital that turned out to be his deathwatch and it felt like the right thing to do, because it was real. I could see when he stopped being under his skin. And I still hate modern practices of embalming, because they feel like lying about death.)