When she could no longer
prepare mash for the chickens
or peel potatoes
for the soup
she lost her appetite
even for bread
and scarcely ate
He was painting himself
black on the branches
to watch the crows
who no longer flew high
but kept to the earth
Smaller than the stove
she sat by the window
where outside the leeks grow
By the wood stack
- the hillsides of brushwood
she had carried on her back -
he crouched and became
the chopping block
Her daughter-in-law
fed the chickens
put wood in the stove
At night he reclined on each side
of the burning black fire
burning her bed
What she asked him was his opposite?
Milk he answered with appetite
Lining the kitchen
family and neighbours followed
her fight for breath
High up on the mountain
he pissed on snow and ice
to melt the stream
She found it easier if
she laid her head
on the arm of the chair
His urine was the shape
of an icicle
and as colourless
In her hand
she held a handkerchief
to dab her mouth
when it needed wiping
On his black mirror
there was never breath
The guests as they left
kissed the crown of her head
and she knew them
by their voices
He trundled out a barrow
overturned it
on the frozen dungheap
its two legs still warm
The seventy-third anniversary
of her marriage night
she spent
huddled in the kitchen
from time to time calling her son
she called him by his surname
who rocked on his slippered feet
like a bear
One mistake you made
Death did not joke like a drunk
You should not have grown old
I was not a thief she replied
Dead she looked as tall
laid out on her bed
in dress and boots
as when a bride
but her right shoulder
was lower than the left
on account of all
she had carried
At her funeral
the village saw the soft snow
bury her
before the gravedigger
from "Pig Earth", John Berger 1979
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