the compassion anthology
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  • Archives
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    • Poetry, 2019 >
      • Robbie Gamble
      • Robert Okaji
      • Nicholas Samaras
      • Gabriella Brand
      • Sarah Wernsing
      • Jen Karetnick
      • Cindy Veach
      • Seres Jaime Magana
    • Fiction, 2019 >
      • Ruth Mukwana
      • Andrea Gregory
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Rebecca Keller
    • Essays, 2019 >
      • Review of the movie GIFT
      • Jalina Mhyana
      • Stephen Dau
      • Alexandra Grabbe
      • Olive Paige
    • Art, 2019 >
      • Krisztina Asztalos
      • Rute Ventura
      • Laura Gurton
    • Winter 2018 Art >
      • Dawid Planeta
      • Liliana Washburn
      • Ellen Halloran
    • Winter 2018 Fiction >
      • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
      • Herman Melville
    • Winter 2018 Essays >
      • Nikki Hodgson
      • Ciara Hall
      • Sara Roizen
      • Review of Claudine Nash's The Wild Essential
    • Winter 2018 Poetry >
      • Parker Anthony
      • Crystal Condakes Karlberg
      • Julia Lisella
      • Cynthia Atkins
      • Claudine Nash
    • Essays Summer 2017 >
      • Interview with Gail Entrekin
      • Patricia Reis
      • John Nelson
      • Mary Baures
      • Monette Bebow-Reinhard
      • M.J. Iuppa
    • Fiction Summer 2017 >
      • Jean Ryan
      • Daniel Hudon
      • Ray Keifetz
      • Anne Elliott
      • C.S. Malerich
      • Sascha Morrell
    • Art Summer 2017 >
      • Sara Roizen
      • Jill Slaymaker
      • John Mark Jennings
      • Janel Houton
      • Brandon Gorski
      • Tara White
      • Nancy Dudley
      • Elisabetta Lucchi
    • Poetry Summer 2017 >
      • Megan Merchant
      • Joey Gould
      • Claudine Nash
      • M.R. Smith
      • Kim Aubrey
      • Vivian Wagner
    • Winter 2017 Poetry >
      • Dan King
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Sam Bresnahan
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Danny Romanovitz
      • Kyle Quinn
    • Winter 2017 Art >
      • Elliott Grinnell
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Brendan Brown
      • Lauren Waisnor
    • Winter 2017 Essays >
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Eddie Marshall
      • Sofia Colvin
      • Ishita Pandey
      • Mohsin Tunio
    • Summer 2016 Fiction >
      • Jyotsna Sreenivasan
    • Summer 2016 Art The Women Artists and Writers Exhibit
    • Summer 2016 Poetry >
      • Colleen Michaels
      • Jennifer Markell
      • Tara Masih
      • Holly Guran
      • Heather Nelson
      • Bahareh Amidi
      • Alison Stone
      • Julia Travers
      • Amy Jo Trier-Walker
    • Summer 2016 Essays >
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Katelyn Gilbert
      • Kim-Marie Walker
      • Bahareh Amidi
    • Winter 2016 Fiction >
      • Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl
      • The Cresting Water
    • Winter 2016 Art >
      • San Giovanni D'Asso Landscape Paintings
      • It's All About the River
      • Jellyfish Sculptural Drawings
    • Winter 2016 Poetry >
      • Poems from Songs in the Storm
    • Winter 2016 Essays >
      • The Gleaners
      • The Aliveness Project
      • Named
    • Summer 2015 Fiction >
      • The Cloak
      • Sanctuary
    • Summer 2015 Art >
      • Environmental Art
      • Compassion in the Midst of Violence
      • Burn Myself Completely for Him and Souls
      • Eye of Oneness
      • Stepping Forward
    • Summer 2015 Poetry >
      • Poem With a Question From Neruda and INDICTMENT
      • The Humans
      • Afghan Boy and other poems
      • Reparations
      • Transference and other poems
    • Summer 2015 Essays >
      • The Ineffable Aspects of Forgiveness
      • He Was Better Than I’ll Ever Be
      • A Voice in the Desert
    • Winter 2015 Fiction >
      • White Heron
      • Freeing a Little of the Madness
    • Winter 2015 Art >
      • Cascade of Care and Life
      • Sentience
      • A Paternal Instant
      • Aurora, Paloma, and the Melangolo Tree
      • Seated Pose
      • Antigone's Map
      • Ladder
    • Winter 2015 Poetry >
      • Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      • Nicknames
      • Stopped at a Light,
      • Why mate for life? Red crown crane
      • The Prisoner
      • Stigmata
      • "Oh don't," she said. "It's cold."
      • Convene
    • Winter 2015 Essays >
      • The Forgiveness Project
      • A Stranger on a Subway
      • A Journey to Compassion
      • The Question of Compassion
      • Reflections on a Childhood Deforested
      • Click, Click, Click
Go gentle
by Sascha Morrell
 
Vision dims as the day dies and the rocky slope runs crumbling into the sea. It’s barely winter, but already the wind has turned on us. We stand shoulder to shoulder in its salt sting. You stood taller than me once but now you hunch, Galapagan. Your face is creased with lost years.
 
I wonder how many times we have stood here facing the horizon, tracing the line where the sea meets the sky. From this spot, we used to think we could make out the curve of the world. Now I imagine how it will roll on without you, and how I will have to go on with everything eroding, blowing cold, falling away.
 
And yet they say the sea is getting warm.
 
Even when the winds are big, the gulls hold onto the headland. More of them every year. They huddle on the grass, dotting the slope where the hard air ruffles their feathers. They seem to mourn with me, rending the air with white cries.
 
I take your hand. Come on now. I lead you inside like a child, leaving behind what is left of the view.
 
*
 
I microwave two frozen meals, put out two placemats, the water jug, cups and cutlery, your medication. I fasten the big napkin around your neck. You watch me with a wary, watery gaze that turns me into a stranger. I’m getting used to it now, this look, where your eyes seem to grieve for all they have seen and forgotten, straining and searching my face for something they no longer recognize.
 
There is none of your mumbling tonight, no moaning protest. But you are slow. You struggle with the cutlery, years knotting in your knuckles. As usual I chat away, though tonight you don’t listen. I talk about the time you saw Halley’s Comet, your Morris Minor, the time your dad shook hands with Neil Armstrong.
 
I try to remember your memories. Every day I tell them to you like stories and sometimes, just for a moment, you seem to resurface, rising to meet me. I get a glimpse of you, urgent and fleeting, then it fades. Not tonight.
 
On the table before us is a vase of everlastings.
 
I treasure the terrible time we have left. I treasure the giddying tilt of your decline.
 
*
 
After the late news, leaving you adrift in your recliner, I step outside for some fresh air. The wind has died down slightly and I wander out a little from the house, barefoot in the wet grass. The sky is a dull, heavy gloom. It is as if the sea’s boom and roar has no source, and there is neither headland nor horizon, no edges and no end.
 
I move forward by blind instinct, with a careful, uncertain tread. My presence unsettles the gulls. Then the breeze picks up in a sudden gust and two of the birds lift their wings, then four or five, revealing their whiteness in flight. In the dark they might be doves, except they’re screaming.
 
 
Sascha Morrell reads, writes, teaches, and scrambles over rocks on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge and taught English at the University of New England (Australia). She has published short fiction and poetry in numerous British and Australian literary journals. Her latest creative work explores the relationship between human beings and moths. This story was originally published in Grieve.

 
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