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  • Timor mortis conturbat me
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Timor mortis conturbat me

Diana Hendry

Will it give me six months warning
Or come when least expected?
Will I trip over it one morning
And find myself disconnected?

Will it come on the way to Corstorphine
Or when sitting on the loo?
Will I need a lot of morphine
Will a bottle of brandy do?

Will it happen in broad daylight?
Or wait until it’s dark?
Will it come like a lover at midnight
On a necromancing lark?

Will I lose control of my bladder?
Will I lose control of myself?
Will the Lord send down a ladder
And shock the National Health?

Will it start as a minor chill,
Then turn to a nasty cough?
Will it spread everywhere until
Someone has to switch me off?

Is it already growing inside me?
Does it have a date and a time?
Will I know when at last it’s untied me?
O what’s the use of rhyme?

’The fear of death disturbs me’, a phrase from the Catholic Office
of the Dead, was used notably by William Dunbar, the medieval Scottish
poet, in his ‘Lament for the Makars’.


Diana Hendry

from Second Wind (Saltire Society, 2015)

Reproduced by permission of Diana Hendry.

Tags:

death mortality questions The Makars the unknown
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Diana Hendryb.1941

Diana Hendry is a poet, short story writer and the author of many children’s books.
More about Diana Hendry

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