Ode to Cecilia

Robert Southwick Richmond

ODE TO CECILIA

 

Your yellow face from a white enamel chair

at the foot of your bed on the ward at City Hospital

quavered its endless mantra: dooWAHD dooWAIN

that held the patience of your white inferno;

 

your voice accessed a few bytes of mind

still there in the wreckage of a head crash.

Since they plumped up your lungs, walked you twice a day,

you may for all I know still be crying: dooWAHD dooWAIN.

 

Your cry perfects you, placed at every point

of eternity and ubiquity, a universe

of superstrings in constant harmony,

saint martyred for your music: dooWAHD dooWAIN.

 

And I, mucking in that rubble of many years ago,

my first faith, first marriage, first career,

the birth of my first daughter,

remember you, cry  Cecilia, Cecilia: dooWAHD dooWAIN.

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Comments +

Comments3

  • Robert Southwick Richmond

    I wrote this poem when I was a medical student, about 1961, about what was later called a “gomer cry”, the call of a demented person. Her face was jaundiced from a medication, what I no longer remember. This is a poem to read out loud. Think of St. Cecilia, patroness of music. Cecilia was really her name.

    • Neville



      .... Well penned my literary friend ... I wonder whether Cecilia is elsewise remembered .. I sincerely hope so................ Neville

      • Goldfinch60

        I know of three 'Odes to St Cecelia' by Purcell, Handel and Britten.

        Andy

      • orchidee

        Gosh, you've seen some things and people in life, including this Cecilia, and the link with St Cecilia.
        The mind getting 'stuck' on some meaningless chant? Or some deep meaning, known only to the person?

      • Robert Southwick Richmond

        After 60 years, I doubt anyone remembers this poor demented indigent woman. Possibly one of the nurses who cared for her is still living and remembers. There was one really tough old nurse on that big ward, and she made each of those patients walk every day, usually accompanying them.

        It's not uncommon for demented people to wail or moan some short, often meaningless phrase like Cecilia's, over and over. Sometimes this "gomer cry" appears to originate from something they were saying or thinking when a stroke hits.

        Among odes to St. Cecilia, I was thinking of Purcell's.

        I must have written this poem considerably after 1961, when I met Cecilia, since it uses computer jargon from the 1980s, and refers to events in the distant past.



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