IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO OTHER WORLDS, INNER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS!

Poems, Grief, Loss, Letting Go, Bereavement, E=MC^2, Poem About Einstein's Equation, Mass, Energy, The Music of the Spheres, The Light, Physics, Phase Transitions, Birth & Death, Fear of Death, Poem Of The Day, Dagen's Dikt, Terminal Cancer, Mother In Law Poet, Birgit Almqvist, Spiritual Journey, Oncology Ward, Lady In Grey, Sadness, Sacred Twins, Sand Dollar, Child Spirit, Timelessness, Circular Song, Heartbreak, Minutiae, Organ Donation, Get Well Cards, The Morning After, Sunflower, Pascal, Familiar, Coffin, Magic, Cloud of Butterflies, The Psychology Of Change, The Whiskey Trail, Upheaval, Dying Father, Impossible Choices, Sow Order & Harvest Chaos, Learning In Freedom, Adopted Chickens, Farmer's Son, Metaphysics, Angels Dancing On The Head Of A Pin, Son Of Mother Earth, A Great Gardener, Rebuilding The Garden Of Eden, Paradise Reborn, Father Sky, Cracks, Angel Wings, Pink Fairy Wings, Parallel Lives, Planck Length, Planck Time, Physics Meets Theology, Atoms, Galaxies, Universe, Subatomic Particles, Gathering Of Mothers, Mother Mary, Divine Mother, Medisch Centrum Alkmaar, Room 361, Sacred Mystery, Quantum Steps, The Unknown, Wormholes, Deja Vu, Physicist Shaman, Grandmother Angel 

POEMS I

About Grief and Loss and Letting Go

 Once upon a time (about 15 years ago!) I used to keep a diary by means of poems: the Poem Of The Day. This inspired my mother-in-law, Birgit Almqvist, a published poet, to do the same thing in Sweden, she called it "Dagen's Dikt" in Swedish.

Then we bought a big house and had three children in four years. I stopped writing poems. Until the day I found myself sitting by my Dad's bed in hospital as he was dying of terminal cancer. Suddenly poems started rolling out of me. I carried a little notepad with me to 'catch' the poems wherever I found myself, as our family undertook the spiritual journey of letting him go.

Death is a very individual process. The nurses on the oncology ward told me that 'everyone has to find their own way of dying'. It was only over time that I realised that bereavement in general, and the death of a parent, are deeply universal themes as well. Most human beings must face the death of a father or mother, one day. This realisation is what gave me the courage to post these poems on my website. The hope that others will read them and say: 'I feel that too', or 'yes I have been there'. For this reason I will give permission to anyone who wishes to read or use these poems - but please do get in touch first, don't just 'lift them off the website'. Thank you!

On reflection I have decided that this page is for poems about 'Letting Go', poems about loss and death and grief. I have created another page for poems about 'Living Life To The Full', to balance this one. They are two sides of the same coin, you could say.

Heartbreak Is In The Minutiae   

 

The Morning After

 

In the shape

You left in our lives

Birds sing

Flowers grow

Grandchildren play

Bring you

 

29 May 2009

  

Sunflower

 

A neighbour brings
One sunflower

To watch over the coffin

 

On her way out

Dad’s dog

And familiar

Pascal

Barks once, sharply

 

And is instantly surrounded

By a cloud

Of butterflies

 

Will he now work the magic

Dad used to?

29 May 2009 

The Psychology of Change

(or: The Whiskey Trail)

 

In Holland

In a period of upheaval

A dying father

 

I stay

In the house of my brother

Renowned in the Psychology of Change

 

I sleep

Under a bookshelf

With tantalising titles:

 

“Whoever sows order, will harvest chaos”

“Impossible Choices”

“Learning in Freedom”

 

And finally

“From abbey route to whiskey trail”

 

Dreaming my way through change

As he dreams in the room next to me

 

And says:

What about a glass of whiskey before bed?!

 

30 May 2009

Adopted Chickens

 

My husband’s Dutch

Is horrendous

And hilarious

(He is Swedish, I might add)

 

This week he invented

The word ‘KIPSALON’

It translates as

‘Hair Salon for Chickens’

 

At Dad’s funeral

A local farmer offered

To adopt his chickens

To honour the spirit

Of the Farmer’s Son

 

My Dad in turn

Adopted those very same hens

My brother’s friend Jack got tired of

Because they never laid eggs

 

Maybe a trip

To the KIPSALON

Would give them a

Boost?!

 

5 June 2009

 

 

Physics and Metaphysics

 

How many angels dance

On the head of a pin?

 

How many angels dance

In any thought or chance encounter?

 

How many angels dance

In what human beings call inspiration?

 

How many angels dance

Between you and me?

 

How many angels dance

On the head of one human being?

 

How many angels dance

In celebration

When a soul returns home?

 

5 June 2009

 

The Great Gardener

 

A Great Gardener died recently

And I went to say goodbye

To his trees and his Land

 

They said

Feel only joy

Just as he did here

One with the plants and animals

A true son of Mother Earth

 

A Great Gardener

Went to meet

The Great Gardener In The Sky

 

I heard him offer

To rebuild the Garden of Eden

He has already embarked

On Project Paradise Reborn

As I write these words

 

I can see him

Lift his spade

This son of Mother Earth

And Father Sky

The man who gave me life

 

My Dad

 6 June 2009 

 

6 June 2009

 

Room 361

 

Room 361

Oncology Ward

Medisch Centrum Alkmaar

 

For us that room

Will always be the place where Dad died

 

Room 361

Is just a room

Where people come and go

All shed skins the way snakes do

Some shed their entire body

 

Every case a rebirth

Back into our world

Or into sacred mystery

 

The Spirit of Room 361

Observes

Embraces

Pays attention

Even when nurses and relatives don’t

 

 7 June 2009 

Quantum Steps

 

Special Relativity Theory says

That the faster you travel

The more time slows

 

And isn’t it true that

The faster human emotions travel

The more time slows too

 

In a room where someone is dying

The human heart takes quantum steps

The chest that rises

Every time as if for the last time

Ticks off

 

long heavy lifetimes

teardrop shaped

pregnant and curved

Heavy with beginnings and endings

Unlike the featherweight seconds

On the clocks outside

 

In the sacred space

Of human hearts

A man lives on

Long after he dies

 

After the human heart

Once again travels the slow lane

And time speeds up again

 

8 June 2009

 

  

Wormholes

 

During the life burial

I am a worm

Deep inside Mother Earth

Dropping deeper and deeper

Into the Unknown

Where great beauty awaits

 

The next day

Reading about wormholes

In physics

Déjà vu

 

Wormholes

Imaginary tunnels

Between dimensions

Portals to different eras

Time Travel Tubes

Only exist in the minds of

Scientists digging at the cutting edge

Physicists say

 

They exist in my mind too

And quite possibly in yours

 

Have you ever met

A physicist shaman?

I’d sure like to meet one

Even

Do I dare say it

Be one

 

8 June 2009

 

   

Face To Face

 

And

Eleven weeks after Dad dies

I pass a mirror

And in trying to

Catch a glimpse of myself

I come

face to face

with him

 

Friday 14 August 2009

 

(At London City Airport)

 

Grandmother Angel

 

Says my five year old son:

It’s a shame Granddad died

I miss him badly

But obviously

He has only gone back

To the place he came from

The place all of us return to one day…

And so it is a pity he died,

But not a disaster…

 

(Brendan hasn’t been programmed yet

Not to remember)

 

On Grandma’s birthday

An elderly man in a wheelchair asks

If I believe

In Life After Death

 

I quote Brendan’s words

 

He says:

Beautiful words

Words that could make me cry…

If only…. If only….

 

Grandma herself said:

Brendan is so right!

 

For 10 days

Grandma is going to look after this friend

While his wife is away

Maybe there is a conversation

Circling

Waiting for permission to land?

I, for one, hope so…

 

Schiphol Airport, 17 August 2009

 

Imelda Almqvist, (Last updated: 22 September 2009)

 info@imelda-almqvist-art.com

Poems, Grief, Loss, Letting Go, Bereavement, E=MC^2, Poem About Einstein's Equation, Mass, Energy, The Music of the Spheres, The Light, Physics, Phase Transitions, Birth & Death, Fear of Death, Poem Of The Day, Dagen's Dikt, Terminal Cancer, Mother In Law Poet, Birgit Almqvist, Spiritual Journey, Oncology Ward, Lady In Grey, Sadness, Sacred Twins, Sand Dollar, Child Spirit, Timelessness, Circular Song, Heartbreak, Minutiae, Organ Donation, Get Well Cards, The Morning After, Sunflower, Pascal, Familiar, Coffin, Magic, Cloud of Butterflies, The Psychology Of Change, The Whiskey Trail, Upheaval, Dying Father, Impossible Choices, Sow Order & Harvest Chaos, Learning In Freedom, Adopted Chickens, Farmer's Son, Metaphysics, Angels Dancing On The Head Of A Pin, Son Of Mother Earth, A Great Gardener, Rebuilding The Garden Of Eden, Paradise Reborn, Father Sky, Cracks, Angel Wings, Pink Fairy Wings, Parallel Lives, Planck Length, Planck Time, Physics Meets Theology, Atoms, Galaxies, Universe, Subatomic Particles, Gathering Of Mothers, Mother Mary, Divine Mother, Medisch Centrum Alkmaar, Room 361, Sacred Mystery, Quantum Steps, The Unknown, Wormholes, Deja Vu, Physicist Shaman, Grandmother Angel 

IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO OTHER WORLDS, INNER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS!