May it not be so…
But if death comes for
my husband, my love, first,
I pray a flock of giant crows
will be quick to come to me.
I pray the crows will rush in like a fierce wind,
beating the air in their fury,
landing in the trees, on the rooftop,
on the porch,
beside me,
stalking in my darkened door,
entering the house without knocking.
I pray the crows will come to me
with all their black wings
spread like capes,
their ragged feathers
dragging the ground
like tattered mourning clothes.
I pray the dark birds will encircle me,
call out of me my crow-self,
urging me to
caw,
scold,
scream,
screech,
spurring me to
thrust out my neck,
crow-like,
strain forward,
crow-like,
making the cacophonous,
outraged sounds
spew out,
my beaky mouth
my only tool or weapon
to give expression to my grief.
May it not be so…
But if death comes for
my husband, my dearest friend first,
I pray that all the widows,
all the childless mothers,
all my tribal sisters of the world,
will come to me in spirit,
drawn by the primordial sound of
another human’s death-watch weeping.
I pray my sisters will persuade me
to give my body to my grief,
so I pound the ground,
tear my clothes,
throw dust on my head,
clasp my arms around myself
and rock my empty frame.
I pray they will be my midwives,
calling out of me
all my wailing grief,
urging me to pant with the pain,
helping me to bring to birth
the fullness of my sorrow.
I pray my sisters will draw me down
to fall on my knees among them,
all of us leaning into one another,
our arms locked around each other,
our tongues untied,
ululating together
in that piercing,
harrowing vocalization
of unbearable sorrow…
the sorrow
we forget
we risk
at every moment
we love
with all our heart and soul
someone
so fatally mortal.
May it not be so…
But if death comes for
the other half of my heart first,
I will call in the crows.
I will call in my tribal sisters.
But I warn all others:
If my loving man
dies before me,
don’t come near me
if emotionality unnerves you.
For I will not take his death well.
… I will grieve down the house.
I will not pull myself together.
…I will fall apart in a thousand
scrambled, jig-saw pieces.
I will not bear up with quiet courage.
…I will make loud, unseemly scenes
and embarrass the family.
I will not wanly dab my eyes with Kleenex.
…I will soak the songbooks and
drown the carpets with my tears.
And I will not find comfort in any of your
trite-and-true and tried-and-true condolences.
…I will choke on your words if you try to
talk to me then of God’s plan or how my
love is in a better place. Wait.
If death comes for this man I love first,
I will not exhibit
any sugar-coated, over-rated, funereal virtues.
…I will be inconsolable.
…I will scorch the pews with my passion.
…I will weep over what is left of his body:
just a shoeboxful of ashes.
…I will believe I can’t go on without him.
And there will be nothing anyone can do.
So let me go to live
among the crows
for a time.
The crows will let me be.
They will let me tell all my stories
about this prince of a man
and the life we had together,
let me tell the same stories
over and over,
as many times as I need to,
until I don’t need to tell them anymore,
until finally I discover the Love
I thought I’d lost,
still alive,
in the deepest center of my Self,
and I can come back into the world
to love it all again
…for both of us.
July, 2002
Ann L. Keiffer
