Into the Unknown
It is September 4th, and as the summer holidays end and the new school year begins, heralding cooler days, warm autumn colours, cinnamon apple drinks; it is also the month we married forty years ago in Singapore.
I had written this last year and was rather pleased to be awarded third, as it was in a new genre for me, in light verse!
I read it at the launch of the 25th edition of Llanelli Writers’ Circle, Athena at Theatre Ffwrness, in Llanelli, on the 20th August.
John’s reading of his contribution of ‘Family Connections’ drew gasps of surprise, and my reading of this, drew laughter.
INTO THE UNKNOWN
It was clinical, in the white waiting room.
Except for the people waiting, with their bleak attempts
To compose their faces; almost farcical.
All looked anxious, as each one’s name was called out.
A man in all white came to accompany them out.
As each one went out, they didn’t come back.
There must be a different door out?
Felt a calm acquiescence, when my name was called.
My attendant opened the door. I stepped out.
Hurled into a vortex through space and time;
I remembered my life: events, people, pains and pleasures.
At the end, a mellow unequivocal, kind feminine voice, asked,
‘Are you ready?’
Love and hate; happiness and sorrow; empathy and misunderstanding; warmth and cold;
All opposing emotions arose at once; I grappled to come to terms with them.
Did I succeed? – ‘Work in progress,’ I said to myself,
Gravitating through a tunnel: many scenarios, played and replayed, again and again.
Even then I knew it was all a play, until the next destination.
Helpless, but quite reassuringly directed by a force I didn’t understand.
Sucked into a whirlpool, from which emerged many people with whom I had lived and loved
It was time to move on…
I stepped forward and signed on the marriage certificate, committing to a completely different life-
term.
