BROTHER
It's hard to live without you, brother. Between the worlds of death and life this fool hangs around. Misunderstanding is in my soul smouldering, a fire with damp leaves. My heart's fierce wounds given balm even cured by the knowing of you. Banished to this foreign land, you are - wandering through death. Aye, you were our mother's favourite son, she knew your time would come early:loved, wretched, tested, loved again! Know this, brother I'm so glad you were loved. Frightened, in pancreatic agony you said: "John, if I were a dog they'd put me down." You always knew you would die young. That was why you sent your girl away, to live. Ah, tomorrow as we cross the quiet white river of time you can tell me what to do. Mother, you gave birth to him with a heart, so heroic, so full of heart. Mother, sometimes I rage over my father's hearth: where I grew up; birth is luck, everything drifts into the past, where we shall all meet at the last.
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John Marks
Sun 12th Apr 2026 20:18
Thank you RBK, David, Shifa, Gillian, Aisha, Stephen and Graham.
Your siblings are the only people in the world who know what it's like to have been brought up the way you were.
Betsy Z. Cohen