About this blog

My only daughter's name is Clea. Clea was six years and nine months old and she was enjoying a family holiday in Samoa when the ocean surged as a wall, ten metres high, and drowned her. Many other people died that morning of 29 September 2009.
The other four members of her family survived the tsunami.
Life has never been the same since. It will never be the same. This blog features memories, reflections, poetry, etc...
Just let me stay with her under this moon,
hold her in my arms, spin her in the air,
with my dear daughter in some timeless swoon.

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Petals: A poem


Petals
(for Trudie)

They collect rose petals. They place them
in plastic takeaway containers; then they drive.
The road’s never too busy – it’s Sunday morning.
Two boys chatter the drive away,
past the windows and past the empty seat
that so suddenly appeared between them,
instead of their sister.
It is thirty-eight months old, but the car
slows down to twenty – ducks crossing.
A narrow steep driveway.
Stop.

Four doors open, four feet will walk slowly,
the other four race away, past the plaques
and the vases, past the windsocks, past
so many plastic flowers last night’s stormy
wind must have spread around.
They bring young flowers, blooms for an old sorrow.
They’re like silky raindrops,
like tears falling down from the sky
dropping like a warm blanket for winter.
Rose petals on the lawn:
they cover the emptiness their life has become.

So many rose petals! So delightful! So smooth!
These are teary petals,
they are grief-stricken blooms.

(c) Jorge Salavert, 2012

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