Deathbed

Deathbed                                                                                                 
 
Sort of poetry by then, her juxtapositions
sans sequences, contexts, continuums,
 
sans tenses, pertinence, conventional wisdom;
a dark, intuitive truth, poetically incoherent beauty
 
plumbing a deeper level if (loved) one
only knew how to listen,
 
but one never does;   
wrapped up in who she thought she was
 
and should have been,
tried earnestly to be or not to be;
 
exhausting after a while the listener,
telling her last minute truth
 
from the bed of a murmuring brook
and really what is there left to say or hear
 
after a lifetime of chatter and love,
dutiful endeavor, compulsive volatility?
 
That was her poetry, too, largely incoherent
to everyone around even herself
 
and yet, as I have suggested,
strangely brave, beautiful and worthy.
 
O child of God, how better to greet the mystery
than with humble bewilderment and incoherence?