Once Gone

The postman begins to carry a lesser load down your path
The phone rings less often,
it's toll now bringing a salesman's patter.
The sun continues to rise
..........and set.
Tomorrow's news seems no different
than a thousand other days
And that sharp knife slicing through your soul
Is becoming a familiar companion.
Pain leaked into pen & ink
has helped to dull the edge,
And time, too, begins to do its work.
Mostly, the body's mechanisms
simply can't maintain the strain
Of such a Harpy's clatter of sorrow.

But as the world goes on without and around you,
and people assume you healing,
There are still moments---
A sunset, a raindrop, a book's phrase or stranger's laugh...
The curve of a jaw in a coffee shop
a few scattered notes on radio waves...
When sharp and quick that knife slices
clean through every carefully built defense
Leaving ragged searing tears in its path.
Clutching your gut,
Stealing breath & reason, and
shoving you into a spiraling well of anguish.

And in those private moments,
When there is no one left around to hold you,
No one but yourself to hold you up or together,
When all have gone home to resume their own lives
their own loves—
It is in those moments that I will be thinking of you.
It is in those moments I will be praying for you.
In those moments, I will pray for solace to wash over you
and bring you a measure of peace.
In those moments I will grieve with you.
In those moments, I send you my love.

----To Uncle Duane, September 2000