Last phone call, or: Blue stained glass

Posted on by ben Alexander

Poetry Partners #110

‘Last Phone Call’, a poem by Mary Anne Abdo of ‘Blue Stained Glass’

One call, four lines.
"Dad, can you hear us?"
"Mom is outside of your bedroom window.
She wants to say, 'Hello!'"
Hearing his wife banging on the window, "Marty can you hear me?"
Only an inaudible acknowledgement rang over the receiver.
Statements of love mixed with cracked voices of sorrow.
Covid had stolen yet another family’s human touch to soothe a dying man.
Word, tears and a garbled "I love you"
Came from his lips.
Knowing in our hearts this call was dad’s last goodbye to us.
Via a phone and a nursing home window.
Yes Covid…
You have swallowed our world’s freedoms to your smarmy delight.
Now those left behind must pick up the tattered pieces.

A tricube by ben Alexander of ‘The Skeptic’s Kaddish’

griefs demand
we heed; we
sympathize

other souls'
griefs aren't
about us

grant all souls'
griefs space to
manifest

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

List of Poetry Partners

22 thoughts on “Last phone call, or: Blue stained glass”

  2. I too had to say goodbye via a phone call as my aunt was transitioning from this world with Covid. It has touched us all. Both poems?are wonderful.

      1. And Covid has indeed brought us a lot of unnecessary grief and robbed us of some very necessary human contact! Beautiful; heartbreakingly described by Mary with such a thoughtful and reflective response from you David! 🙁👍👌🤔👏

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s