Ease

"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; the Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death."

The Journey of the Magi ~ T.S. Eliot


I had been back in Singapore for a couple of weeks and met up with Pat for coffee and telling her what i had seen.. my mother the same and different, bleeding and ill, me, each night in the dark fixing my heart painstaking scotch tape feeling already the next break, sleeping once more in the kitchen of her home, like i did till i was 13, beside the washing machine now what was the oven, and we moved to a bigger flat and no more, and another and they back to a smaller, life passing and friends some much much more and stranger less and the streets full of new clothes and bright cars and the city shinier still and sadder, things different and not some yet the same much no.
Then she said to me like a thunderbolt i can't remember the title i can't remember i think you are no longer at ease here no longer at ease no here i was