FAR FROM CONSOLATION
By Delores Gauntlett

"A thousand miles from here, you have given up
belief in providential ordering of events…"
- Robert Cording

Some months after burying the child, you say
you're as numb as when you first found
the other side of what's bearable;
that you have given up on what you knew;
that all that you believed is unrecoverable.
I've heard of your bewilderment
now that a proverb no longer startles pain,
as your mind comes up against a wall
where nothing worse can happen now. So,
the less you know, the more you say the pain shuts in,
the more you cry, the less you understand; while I
think of things I cannot undo,
things that we must suffer unconsoled,
&, see no vantage point, no look-out
for a lesson to the heart.

I watch you there, where April leaves
gesticulate in a restless breeze
thick with the scent of rain and rambling
through the drizzling light of day,
bringing to mind a day with no more moves
than Now, without time even to say,Watch Out!

I am 53 years old, living in Jamaica West Indies, started writing poetry ten years ago. I have one published book of poetry: "Freeing Her Hands To Clap", 2001; which, while it was a manuscript-in-progress, was a finalist in the University of Wisconsin Press poetry series 1999 competition, and also won a national prize.