Soliloquy to the Night Sky
by Kathleen Gregg
35 Poems ~ 43 pages
Price: $19.00
Publisher: accents publishing
ISBN: 978-1-961127-23-4
To Order: accents-publishing.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Preparing to write this review has been a challenge. I note this because I witnessed my younger brother’s slow decline from brilliance to the dark night of total loss. My heart is enveloped in Kathleen Gregg’s poetic cocoon of loss and the dilemma it presents for the meaning of life. Soliloquy to the Night Sky will resonate with thousands who have witnessed a loved one’s final monolog with whom they once were and will never be again.
“No False Hope,” appears half-way through the collection. Nancy, Kathleen’s older sister, is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s:
When I visit now, I am faced
with a body emptied of you.
Your heart still beats its rhythm,
lungs push air in and out.
If a nurse lifts a spoon to your lips,
you open, chew and swallow.
Sometimes, the aides park you
in front of the common room TV.
You stare at the screen with eyes
devoid of awareness. This is
how I find you today. I squat
in front of your wheelchair, smile,
say Hi, Nancy, it’s me, your sister,
and you turn those blank eyes on me.
The poem continues describing the poet’s longing that her efforts to love, comfort, and amuse her beloved will somehow reach Nancy’s awareness. Notice how this poem is a series of declarative sentences, stark, rational. Nancy’s life-situation has become exactly that, descriptive rather than engaging.
How did we get here?
Kathleen opens her collection with “No Off Ramp,” a poem perfectly placed as Nancy is, “sobbing and / sobbing and / begging for her life / to make sense again.” Kathleen is trying to comfort her panicked sister over the speaker phone while driving in traffic. “relentless traffic / is the only thing keeping me grounded / from the jolt / of my sister’s distress.” Indeed, in the moment and in the larger life-setting, Kathleen knows there is no “off ramp” for this. There is “just enough awareness / to split us down the middle.”
“Nancy is Never the Same,” is an early clue of what is ahead:
After her year of breast cancer therapy,
she knows it. Chemo Brain is real.
I’m not as sharp as I used to be. Still,
we believe surely, with time,
her fogginess will clear up. Surely.
Then, for the first time ever, she forgets
my birthday. No card, no phone call.
I let it go.
However, these are just the first fruits of Nancy’s decline; the inability to work through things that in times past were not problematic for her sister’s keen mind. From there telling incidents build one upon the other. The poem “I Ignore the Signs,” portrays my own experience with my brother’s decline. I consistently told myself This isn’t really happening. It was trivial things that Kathleen and I ignored:
my sister needs a dress
for her granddaughter’s wedding
tells me she dreads the search
(my cue to offer help)
I jump at the chance
to do such a girl thing with her
This poignant poem chronicles a series of “little things” that tell a big story in retrospect: Nancy has never heard of Marshalls, where they will shop; inside the store Nancy loses her sense of place, looks “defeated” as she browses the racks and tries on dresses; she asks, “What’s the name of this store again?” All of this and more return to Kathleen as she mourns and ponders Nancy slow, irreversible decline. “The End of Pretending” ties a bow around the phase of denial:
I feel Nancy hunt and hunt for words,
as if she is rifling through a box of loose photos.
Mostly she just gives up, spits out a laugh,
Well it’s gone. I try to make light of it, fill in
the blanks, fall back on our inside jokes. That lifeline
is fraying (face it) from the weight of my furious grip.
Today, I attempt to reminisce about our cousins,
the big family gatherings. Her flat voice admits,
I don’t know who they are. And I hear
the first goodbye.
From this seed that captures Nancy’s steady decline, there are moments of light. “What a Difference the Right Meds Make,” delivers momentary jubilation as Kathleen visits Nancy, now under the care of trained nurses. Nancy seems better than before. She is chatting coherently, swaying to the vibrations of Mustang Sally, joy is bubbling out of mouths encouraging her. But the joy fades, like the slow decline of a light bulb … “I realize my sister is still confused, / her memories jumbled, disappearing. / but her terror, my helplessness / in the face of it, has been lowered / to the bottom of the well.”
Reading Soliloquy to the Night Sky, I felt the gentle prodding of a shepherd, somehow knowing that I needed time to process the roller coaster of feelings she was experiencing. I haven’t considered, in this review, all the poems that deserve treatment. But as I read each one slowly, savoring their content, I somehow felt renewed in my soul. This is a gift of poetry. Only poetry can achieve the solace one needs at such an hour. I think of my brother Tom as I offer these unforgettable lines from “Acceptance”:
Let my sister lift up
and out
of her useless body.
Let her feel
my love rush
after her.
Let her float
in an ocean of light.
Warm, peaceful,
safe.
Let her memories
spark
within her soul,
brimming
and bright.
Let her sing
in a blur of joy,
I am whole.
A prayer of sorts? Indeed, it is a prayer of sorts. Perhaps my brother Tom has met Nancy somewhere in heaven’s precincts … and with full throat they are singing, I am whole, praise God, I am whole!
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