Monday, May 14, 2007

You are not here


You are not here

You are not here,
this earthen womb
is but a place
where your shed skin
a cast-off chrysalis
had its last embrace.
I cannot cry for you:
you have not known sorrow’s dark mantle
or disappointment’s piercing lance,
nor has act or omission hobbled you
in their restricting chains.
I cannot cry for you:
though we shared our tiny world -
a space I exchanged for wider vistas:
sun’s colourful waking and sleeping,
bright day and midnight moonlight,
dawnly choruses and fleeting silences.

I miss you when an incautious eye
slips upon the shower mat to spy
your mottled signature
above my heart.
It’s then I wonder
what may or might have been
if untimely chance
had not dictated that we part.
But I cannot cry for you.
All I wonder at through darkly glass,
eternal things and mystery,
as yet are yours not mine.
All that separates us is not death
or worm or clumps of earth
but the ambiguity of time.
I do not come here often
nor do I mourn for you
and tears that come,
as come they do
are more for me than you.


Photo: The gravestone placed on Susan's grave (at the instigation of an older sister) is to be blessed 19/5/07.

4 comments:

Maxine said...

Thanks you for expressing this in a way that so many of us never could, but feel. You last words "and tears that come, as come they do, are more for me than you," were similar to my emotions at the grave of my mom on Saturday. I am assuming that this was your daughter; it's so precious that you've kept her memory alive in such a sweet way. This photo is awesome.

Keith Wallis said...

Maxine - Susan is my twin sister.

Hannah Goldsmith said...

Another glimpse into that precious heart of yours....beautiful

Maxine said...

Sorry, Keith. I guess that would have aged you quite a bit.