On the last day of his life as he lay comatose in the hospital bed
I saw that his soul was a hare which was poised
In the long grass of his body, ears pricked.
It sprang toward me and halted and I wondered if it
Could hear me breathing
Or if it could smell my own fear, which was,
Could he but have known it, greater than his
For plainly he was a just and playful man
And just and playful men are as brave as they are rare.
Then his cancer-eroded body appeared to shudder
As if a gust of wind blew through the long grass
And the hare of his soul made a U-turn
And began bounding away from me
Until it disappeared from sight into a dark wood
And I thought -- that is the end of that,
I will not be seeing him again.
He died in front of me; no one else was in the room.
My eyes teemed with tears; I could not damp them down.
I stood up to walk around his bed
Only to catch sight again of the hare of his soul
Springing out of the wood into a beachy cove of sunlight
And I thought: Yes, that's how it is going to be from now on.
The hare of his soul always there, when I least expect it;
Popping up out of nowhere, sitting still.
Joan Mirรณ
