This poem, by Society member, local artist and writer Mary Gurr, was selected for the Society’s Folio #73 in 2019.
Last Rite
She was lying on her side today
when I arrived. She moved a little
when I held some lilac blossom,
dewy from the garden to her cheek,
again when I described the others
I had brought, beech, hawthorn, camellia,
picked that day and scented to engulf
the rising scent of dying –
I put them in a vase beside her bed
and sat a while, eighty-six years
and now she’s nearly there,
a silent remnant of herself
waiting. I was thinking of the time
when I was small she showed me
how to take a photograph. We
went into the garden, glorious
rhododendrons billowing
and she was beaming, eyes, smile
her perfect toothpaste teeth,
waiting for the click – Yes,
she shouted, as I brought the shutter
firmly down, Yes!
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 