Wangiwriter's Blog

A to Z Challenge – G is for Going Grand

April 8, 2015 at 12:05 am | Posted in History, Philosophy, Poetry | 7 Comments
Tags: Carl Sagan, postcards, Titanic

It is amazing what can inspire a poem. This one came from a newspaper report I read of an airline crash.

Going Grand

 

An old postcard, tucked into the mirror.

the writing, scrawled and faded.

….

How close is Death? Can we ever know?

Awareness of the grave is

a sword of Damocles above my head,

held by a single, flimsy thread;

waiting for a weakness, a jolt, a blade.

Inevitable extinction; the flip side,

the corollary – the end point, of life.

How long abides that life?

….

I turned the postcard over

to see the picture on the front.

….

Last week, a friend died,

six weeks short of his century,

a former prisoner of war

who reconciled enemies

and bequeathed to generations,

his life’s spirit, fruitful and inspiring.

….

Others died last week:

Wombed babies, aborted

by accident or design;

Infants, starved by war and famine;

Children, lost to accident or affliction,

neglect or violence;

Life barely tasted.

….

A curlicued border surrounded

the sepia photograph of a mighty ship.

….

Some died in the midst of life:

young men who drove too fast or lived too hard;

innocent victims of hate and suicide bombers;

soldiers, sacrificed in wars decreed by others.

Some welcomed Death’s cold embrace,

escaping the heated anguish of Life.

….

Others slipped away under the allure

of mind-altering drugs.

And how many others were just

in the wrong place at the wrong time?

….

The “Titanic”, in all her majesty;

symbol of a new and glorious future,

magnificently portrayed.

….

What of we, who have tasted

Life’s full flavour –

or frittered it away

in wasteful might-have-beens?

….

Are our lives any different

to those foreshortened?

Do we, any more than they,

know the time of our passing?

….

Dear friend, the writing on the back said,

‘just a line to show I am alive

and kicking and going grand.’

….

Death comes by chance alone

it seems at times – Fate’s whimsy.

Many say that Life and Death,

their time and span,

are not ours to determine,

but are in the hands of God;

or perhaps of Destiny –

our time written in the stars.

We do not know the hour;

and if we did,

would it make a difference?

….

The postcard was dated the day before

the ill-fated vessel sank beneath

the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

….

 

(c)  Linda Visman

Written after reading an article by Matt Price in Weekend Australian (10^th Feb. 07) about the death, last week, of one journalist and the serious injury of another in the Garuda Airlines crash in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Price mentions the story of an old postcard that cosmologist, Carl Sagan, kept near his shaving mirror.

Matt Price himself died towards the end of 2007 of a brain tumour. He was aged in his early forties.