Best of IMAGINE 2007 

You didn’t want howling machines   
 to prolong the inevitable  
 the fake life morphine reality  
  
Please don’t die until I am with you  
I have plenty of grace to your liking  
I will read at your beside the poets you love   
I shall read for you about life and the angel of death  
     
I will brush the dried blood from your thick hair  
Sing for you the lullabies forgotten  
from your youth  
Please wait for me  
  
Songbird spreading its wings towards the light  
Your life fades out  
your face faultlessly smooth  
Through your half-closed eyes  
I see stars  
Infinity and the universe  
Yet death does not come at our mortal bidding   
As you slept the angel of death came for you   
embraced you with ocean-blue cloak  
and as you left with him  
you sang in my dream  
“Did you know, your friend is dying?”  
You smiled and vanished into the beyond   
   
The day passed in flight  
In transit between our world and your world  
So far yet so close  
  
Finally on a distant soil  
I embraced your lifeless body  
still lukewarm  
I kissed your face with a thousand kisses   
howled “mama, mama, please come back  
be warm again”  
but nothing was capable of pulling you  
from death’s embrace  
     
Peace found, mercy from life’s heavy burdens  
And I let go, I rejoice with you at the core of my grief   
with your book of life singing in my heart.

Related pieces:

SONG—When the violin is silent

PHOTO AND WRITTEN ESSAY—Journal of the Ladybug

Birgitta Jonsdottir