The Moya View

Washing the Corpses

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–After Rainier Maria Rilke

 

 

The washers have lived with death

as they have with the lamp,

the flame and the  dark,

the nameless rinsing of limbs,

the even more unnameable nameless.

without histories relative to them.

Their sponges dipped the water

then the silent throat,

trickled rivulets on their faces,

waiting for it to absorb,

to convince themselves more than anything

that the body no longer thirsted.

They only stopped their toil

to turn their head to cough.

The older ones unclenched

the hands of the dead

that refused their final repose.

Only their shadows

jerked the quiet walls,

the net of silent life

extinguishing to last existence

that ignored their shrugs

as the last now antiseptic corpse

was finished and the window shut.

 


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2 responses to “Washing the Corpses”

  1. carolineshank Avatar

    This is very, very excellent. I’m not sure I get the reference to Rilke, but that’s probably just me.

  2. JONATHAN MOYA Avatar

    It’s just to acknowledge the fact that parts of the poem are taken from Rilke’s poem Washing the CORPSE.
    IM just acknowledging that source poem as the inspiration and take off point for the one I wrote

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