Thanks, Max. I do recall reading your poem on the same theme. It does seem to be a cluster memorial situation and quite different from a crematorium or funeral home or 'park' as they are now styled, I see. At first I associated the practice with hoonery and indeed there have been miscreants out our way who burn rubber at the sites of such vehicular deaths. But I suppose I am coming towards accepting the reclamation of the place of death by mourners. Your poem is enriched by the survivor driver tale in the end. It is hard to be cohesive about death matters.
Bill
> On 11 Feb 2015, at 10:00 am, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Good theme well realized, Bill.
> As you know, I posted my less successful piece here years ago, gosh 2007 -
> but couldn’t find it - now it has turned up, and I post it here without revision,
> whereas revision is just what it needs…soon.
> best from Max
>
> Remember this, Patrick?!
> you wrote:
>
> Max thanks -I shall put a wreath up outside my place at once just in case I
> fall off my eco friendly bike
> Cheers P
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Max Richards
> Sent: 12 September 2007 01:54
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: snap: roadside memorials
>
> Roadside Memorials
>
>
> These days, no matter where you drive,
> round town or in the country,
> it isn¹t long before your eye
> gets drawn to the side of the road
>
> one of those wreaths, tied maybe
> to a pole, or an improvised
> cross, signifying ŒHere, right here
> our friend (or family member) died¹.
>
> Sometimes grouped together, two
> bedraggled wreaths or three or four
> more than one death maybe?
> or just the numerous bereaved.
>
> A hand-written message you can¹t
> quite read covers some piece of card
> saying this sort of thing, no doubt:
> ŒYou were our Mate, Buddy, why
>
> why why did you have to Die?
> Always in our Hearts, Buddy¹.
> Other times, re-passing, your eyes
> widen tinselly, gaudy,
>
> soon tattered...they¹ve been renewed!
> Someone¹s come back time and again,
> loyally brightening the shrine.
> When will they give up and Œmove on¹?
>
> Graves can expect an annual visit,
> these maybe weekly or monthly.
> It¹s as though the grieving ones
> believe the souls of the dead stay
>
> hovering here before finding
> their way elsewhere, to...ŒHeaven¹?
> some after-life they stubbornly
> nurture continued belief in,
>
> or rediscover when they need it.
> One such shrine sported a range
> of food and drink containers,
> as if to sustain the lost one
>
> in his former nosh and tipple.
> One more for the road? The liquor
> may have caused the crash the road
> to my eye carried no danger.
>
> He failed again, Saint Christopher,
> patron of pious travellers,
> overworked as he always is,
> he failed again to protect them.
>
> Rounding a curve late at night
> on a wet road as your car swerves,
> you may think, as you don¹t quite skid:
> There but for the grace of Saint Kit...
>
> And there comes rapidly to mind
> one or other sober friend
> who vanished from circulation
> for months, not quite killed, indeed
>
> just less a write-off than his car,
> which left the road in a wink
> of his poor tired eyes, and damn near
> broke every limb and his back.
>
> He¹ll work again and drive again,
> but Lord, the expense to his pocket
> and spirit. Well, he¹s moving on.
> He hasn¹t become a statistic,
>
> and his partner and children
> have earned all their brownie points
> by his hospital bed rather than
> tying pathetic flowers to sticks.
>
> Meanwhile, it¹s another average
> day, the high-pitched ambulances
> are nosing through heavy traffic
> to the latest pile-up, not far
> away from the previous ones.
>
> Wednesday 12 September 2007
>
> Max Richards
>
> Doncaster, Victoria
> [after which I moved to town, st Kilda rd,
> and now Seattle…]
>
>> On Feb 10, 2015, at 13:06, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, Millicent. I hadn't considered family pets. Maybe there are not as many human road deaths as I surmised.
>>
>> It's the rapid withering that gets to me. And the openness, I suppose. Some sort of naked need to declare, out there by the road where all rushes by, that some will never rush again.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>> On 11 Feb 2015, at 7:50 am, Millicent Borges Accardi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> I like this one Bill-- especially
>>>
>>>
>>> "But such bouquets fall mourn-short."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Emblems continue to accumulate
>>> at the site of last breath, of sudden
>>> rupture. There's a reaching in these
>>> jumbled cairns."
>>>
>>>
>>> In the canyon where I live, there are many road "offerings," where a family pet was killed, pedestrians, bicyclists. What happens in Topanga is, after a time, the flowers and candles disappear but eerie white crosses remain, dotting the windy mountain road. Most unmarked.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Millicent
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Kale Soup for the Soul
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.MillicentBorgesAccardi.com
>>>
>>> @TopangaHippie on Twitter
>>>
>>> Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Tue, Feb 10, 2015 12:44 pm
>>> Subject: On the Road
>>>
>>>
>>> Who loads these offerings
>>> by roadside death spots?
>>> Not relatives surely; friends,
>>> you assume, who have already
>>> placed flowers on the coffin, in
>>> chapel, at graveside or urn wall.
>>>
>>> But such bouquets fall mourn-short.
>>> A soul interrupted en route seems now
>>> to require temporal marking. See those
>>> propped white crosses tilting, golden
>>> framed pictures catching the sun's glint,
>>> printed pages flapping in car-breeze,
>>>
>>> oversized stuffed toys nuzzling CDs,
>>> in loose piles, footy scarves, trophies.
>>> Emblems continue to accumulate
>>> at the site of last breath, of sudden
>>> rupture. There's a reaching in these
>>> jumbled cairns. Institutions can't cut it.
>>>
>>> Even when colours fade, animals
>>> desecrate, the vacuum remains.
>>> Not just the absence of the departed,
>>> but some gapingness the dead
>>> leave in all of the rest of us,
>>> for whom the road winds on.
>
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