Acting : May I please share my poem? by Patricia Poulos

The Saint - Kathleen my Mum

by

Patricia Poulos

As the sun was rising at 6.15am

on the twenty-second day of December 2017,

this fair beauty of the north and

mother of seven living children

took her last breath.

The laughing of her favourite bird

the Kookaburra

was heralding in a new dawn

to the sweet smell of Gardenia

and the passing

of a Saint-who-did-no-harm.

With love and devotion

it would be her eldest

at her side to the end

the rest busy,

arranging her funeral

whilst she was still fighting to live.

With her hand on the chest of this Saint

the eldest felt the warmth of her body

cool, on the leaving of her soul.

She never complained,

this country-grown lass whose endurance

equalled that of a Trojan even,

when exploited by her own children.

Born the eldest of five

she carried her heavy burden lightly

as she laboured

to maintain her parents' household

her father absent,

working to provide for his growing family.

Her mother was of aristocratic stock.

At eighteen this beautiful young lass married,

a man sixteen years her senior who

would become, the love of her life.

This blossoming young girl would bear

seven living children, six,

by the age of twenty-six…

“The more the merrier” and

“trying for a football team” would be the response

to enquirers of these little ones.

But life was difficult after World War II.

Sharing someone else’s home during winter

with her first four

encased, in a cold metal coal-shed,

a mere grey blanket over the sharp black coals

another, over her children as she held them

tightly to keep them warm and avoid

the plummeting rain pouring

through the holes in the rusted tin roof.

The carrying of a dead unborn child to full-term,

would set her apart.

This strength of character would see her through

many losses in her ninety-four years.

Her inner beauty masking her age

she would be taken for a sixty-year-old.

On the passing of her beloved husband

she visited The Holy Lands on a Pilgrimage.

She was vulnerable.

For twenty-four years

she lived at the mercy of others

comforted only,

in the knowledge that her eldest,

would always be there… always, at her side.

On Saint Patrick’s Day

she would don her greens and

attend an Irish Pub where she would be treated,

as the princess that she was.

She retained her mental capacity

even in the presence of a frontal lobe tumour

editing movie-scripts.

This beauty,

which The Lord designated to be Our Mum

lay suffering,

at the hands of a government hospital

in which the aged

are scheduled for extermination.

Having lost her ability to speak

this Saint could not object.

Nor, did she complain at being swindled

by her youngest daughter

out of her home entitlement, the address

never revealed.

She rarely smiled yet,

two days before the seizure which led

to her final hospitalization, asleep,

her face was overcome

with a smile as never-before seen.

Her battle now at an end it is her eldest

left with the burden…

Had she done enough?...

Could she have done more?...

Should she have done better?

Dissatisfied with the answers it was she,

who would bear the loss

of this Saint-who-did-no-harm;

this partner-in-crime and best friend,

and upon whom, the burden of deficiencies remain.

But it was the failure of The Holy Spirit to come

to take the Saint

as it had her beloved which haunted the eldest,

only now, accepting, the Aura’s absence

was due to The Holy Spirit

already being within her wonderful mum

and it just needed,

to take her home.The Saint - Kathleen my Mum

The Saint

Kathleen my Mum

by

Patricia Poulos

As the sun was rising at 6.15am

on the twenty-second day of December 2017,

this fair beauty of the north and

mother of seven living children

took her last breath.

The laughing of her favourite bird

the Kookaburra

was heralding in a new dawn

to the sweet smell of Gardenia

and the passing

of a Saint-who-did-no-harm.

With love and devotion

it would be her eldest

at her side to the end

the rest busy,

arranging her funeral

whilst she was still fighting to live.

With her hand on the chest of this Saint

the eldest felt the warmth of her body

cool, on the leaving of her soul.

She never complained,

this country-grown lass whose endurance

equalled that of a Trojan even,

when exploited by her own children.

Born the eldest of five

she carried her heavy burden lightly

as she laboured

to maintain her parents' household

her father absent,

working to provide for his growing family.

Her mother was of aristocratic stock.

At eighteen this beautiful young lass married,

a man sixteen years her senior who

would become, the love of her life.

This blossoming young girl would bear

seven living children, six,

by the age of twenty-six…

“The more the merrier” and

“trying for a football team” would be the response

to enquirers of these little ones.

But life was difficult after World War II.

Sharing someone else’s home during winter

with her first four

encased, in a cold metal coal-shed,

a mere grey blanket over the sharp black coals

another, over her children as she held them

tightly to keep them warm and avoid

the plummeting rain pouring

through the holes in the rusted tin roof.

The carrying of a dead unborn child to full-term,

would set her apart.

This strength of character would see her through

many losses in her ninety-four years.

Her inner beauty masking her age

she would be taken for a sixty-year-old.

On the passing of her beloved husband

she visited The Holy Lands on a Pilgrimage.

She was vulnerable.

For twenty-four years

she lived at the mercy of others

comforted only,

in the knowledge that her eldest,

would always be there… always, at her side.

On Saint Patrick’s Day

she would don her greens and

attend an Irish Pub where she would be treated,

as the princess that she was.

She retained her mental capacity

even in the presence of a frontal lobe tumour

editing movie-scripts.

This beauty,

which The Lord designated to be Our Mum

lay suffering,

at the hands of a government hospital

in which the aged

are scheduled for extermination.

Having lost her ability to speak

this Saint could not object.

Nor, did she complain at being swindled

by her youngest daughter

out of her home entitlement, the address

never revealed.

She rarely smiled yet,

two days before the seizure which led

to her final hospitalization, asleep,

her face was overcome

with a smile as never-before seen.

Her battle now at an end it is her eldest

left with the burden…

Had she done enough?...

Could she have done more?...

Should she have done better?

Dissatisfied with the answers it was she,

who would bear the loss

of this Saint-who-did-no-harm;

this partner-in-crime and best friend,

and upon whom, the burden of deficiencies remain.

But it was the failure of The Holy Spirit to come

to take the Saint

as it had her beloved which haunted the eldest,

only now, accepting, the Aura’s absence

was due to The Holy Spirit

already being within her wonderful mum

and it just needed,

to take her home.