Brian-Michael James

It is a challenging poem which is about dying and death which is ever on my mind as I am 81 November 7th. My lovely little cat was killed b a fox and she rests 18 inches down in my garden Death is so painful and hard to understand - as a Cantor and Choirmaster formerly one experienced the heartbreak and intense pain of the bereaved - what will my dying be - how long - how filled with pain - will there be an ambulance to take me to hospital, a bed there for me to lie and die in, will there be medical care and palliatives? I came near to death in 2011 when I contracted Miller Fisher Syndrome after a 'flu injection - I was partly paralysed and my eyes did not move and the image in my left eye was 45 degrees to the horizontal plane As this Syndrome means the immune system attacks the motor system having several blood tests a day did not hurt so much - I would have died easily without much pain - my friend Sir Charles Lucy said, 'I thought you were a goner,' Were the extra 9 years profitable? Very hard to assess - life is never fun as one feels little has been done as when one was younger and an academic. The Lockdown has created stress - living in solitary almost but I found unexpectedly myself almost automatically writing poetry - Here is one, one Religious Sister liked Nativity What is this child to be Who quiet lies And seldom cries And from whose eyes Such radiance flies To rapture, ravish me? And then behold Her smile unfold Unspoken, told In wonder to be known Some strange foretelling of What one day will be shown. Sense how I feel Desire to bend To bow and then to kneel Revere such sweetness Rest dear Upon my mother knee: Who suckles softly at my breast A joy, an infinite delight express Enshrined in mystery. Here is love indeed Love to be loved To answer human need To bear a Son so pure So good, so kind To give his love so perfectly For those who senseless sin That they might be redeemed. Brother B. Michael James, sfo, M.Sc. Faith as any other virtue must be exercised = hard though that is. In manus tuas, Domine, commendo Spirituum meum