It's a world of partings

It’s a very true saying – that this is “a world of partings”. There is no need to get maudlin about it. It just is what it is. Friends parting; young family members going their separate ways in the world; divorce; then the most confronting parting of all – death.

 

Nothing anyone can do about it. But, as I have written before, no one knows or has the least understanding of the “meaning” of Life (with a capital L) or what happens when some previously living organism is now dead. What happens to the “Life force” that enervated or activated that organism and which is now (apparently) absent? No one has the least idea.

 

Many, many years ago, when I and the world was much younger, I came across a poem that intrigued me without my fully understanding what it meant. Now, after both my marriages ended with the death of my wife and the death of my sibling, parents and many friends I think I, more or less, understand it now (maybe I’m just a slow learner!).

 

In neither situation, regarding my marriages, was I able to do anything. Obviously, one cannot “fight” death!

 

But I’m still intrigued by this poem!

 

The Shadow.

 

The Shadow leaned over me, whispering, in the darkness,

            Thoughts without sound; 

Sorrowful thoughts that filled me with helpless wonder

            And held me bound.

 

Sadder than memory, sharp as remorse, in the quiet

            Before I slept,

The whisper I heard of the one implacable Shadow,

            And my heart wept.

 

“Day by day, in your eyes, the light grows dimmer,

            With the joy you have sung.

You knew it would go; but, ah, when you knew it and 

      sang it,

            Your heart was young;

 

“And a year to you, then, was an age; but now” said

      The Shadow,

            Malignant and cold,

“The light and the colour are fading, the ecstasy dying,

            It is time to grow old.”

 

Oh, I could have borne the worst that he had to tell me,

            Lost youth, age, death;

But he turned to breathe on the quiet heart sleeping 

     beside me

            The same cold breath.

 

And there by the throat I grappled him. “Let me bear

     all of it.

            Let her dream on.”

Soundlessly, shadow with shadow, we wrestled together,

            Till the grey dawn.

 

                                                            Alfred Noyes.