Poem 170: One More Step/ 28th March 1941.

On the 28th March 1941 Virginia Woolf committed suicide, she put on her
overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, then walked into the River Ouse
near her home and drowned herself. Her body was not found until 3
weeks later.
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Having read somewhere that our bodies were made
from the remnants of ancient stars, she longed to return
to this primordial heat of our stellar ancestry, releasing her
from this dreadfully tight coil of Springing cold wartime
madness, that grabbed at her heart, blighting
the very fields, valleys, and back gardens of her beloved England.

And so black gloved and shrouded in her favourite woollen
overcoat she began by looking for, and filling her pockets
with the stones that she believed were marked and loded with
the designs of a charted and navigable heaven, almost weighing
her up with a lightness that floated her carelessly amongst
the flowering yellow Celandine, that flared and seared
the darkened hedge rowed bank down to the river,
where crows whistled at her eyes,
the wind with whispers straightened her hair, and the ceremonious
clouds that pooled at her feet stepped her
strongly, and then eagerly into the arms of the river,
a constant love that would not easily give her up.

She thought that for one tantalizing moment that she
heard all the bells in all the churches throughout the land
ringing out in a confirmation that with one more step the
war could be over.

Finally the movement of sunlight and cloud embracing
on the surface of the water invited her achingly and with the
first shiver of anticipation to enter into the heat and heart of
the river which on this particular Friday was so beautiful

it took her breath away.