They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
we will remember them.
-Robert Laurence Binyon.
If tears are bleeding of the Soul,
then you must have bled to death
alone,
in silence,
unnoticed:
a tragic life story
overlooked, then lost
in the relentless torrent
of passing years.
But in the void,
somewhere in your far-flung future,
a spectral hand grew flesh
and reached out of trauma
to transcend the perimeters
of accepted feasibility...
What can I possibly tell
you
of the life after death:
of your eyes set in my face,
your words slipping from my tongue,
your compassion tingling through my finger tips;
or of your Spirit's trans gender contortion
into temporarily borrowed life?
For I am simply your medium:
umbilicus to the World
you cannot leave behind.
Overshadowed,
my consciousness withdraws
as I feel you coming through...
Physical recognition:
A momentary rush of pure ecstasy,
followed by a powerful sense of foreboding.
My Soul grows heavy
with untold horrors
and I'm falling through darkness
into the murky depths
of Armageddon.
There is pain, agony,
unimaginable apprehension.
My nostrils are filled with the sickening stench
of decaying flesh.
I want to close my eyes
to the sight of severed limbs,
blood and entrails:
block my ears to the sounds
of these screams of agony.
But spiritual eyes cannot close,
nor ears be covered.
Insanity is a serious threat.
Identity has shifted:
no longer female, I am you.
Time, also, is dislocated.
This is the Somme.
It is 1916.
Words struggle to form
in my larynx...
now burst forth
in familiar masculine voice:
"THERE MUST NEVER BE ANOTHER WAR!"
Weakened to the point of collapse,
I can take no more of this ghastly reality -
at least, not in a single channelling.
You understand,
begin to pull back...and yet
I want to throw my arms around you:
to hold on to you for all eternity
and absorb your suffering
into my own being.
But I cannot,
am not yet strong enough.
The enormity of such heart-rending torment
would surely destroy me.
Still, you and I are Soul Mates.
Bonded since the beginning of time,
it is our shared destiny
to overcome these monstrous challenges,
then eventually move on into the Light.
It is inevitable.
We both know that.
You are fading away now
into the ether.
Part of me longs to go with you,
but mortality holds me back.
I am grounding.
Exhausted,
tear-stained
and emotionally drained,
I desperately need to sleep now...
For William Barnsley Allen...so much more than a memory.
