Unbreakable Thread

a poem on grief

I cannot understand
how two people
who used to be so close,

whose souls were knit
so tightly together
could suddenly
be parted
and stripped away forever
from each other’s arms.

Mere whispers
used to draw our hearts together,
but now even my loudest cries
fail to bring you back to me.

How can it be?
How can you suddenly
be so far away from me?

Must I accept your passing
as a fitting end to what we’ve had?

Should I accept that from this moment on
there will always be a chasm between us,
one that I can never cross
to see you
and to be with you again,
not even for a single happy while?

Have you really gone away?
Have you really left me
all alone?
Can’t you hear me now as I speak?
Can’t you see me now as I search the skies for traces of your smile?

O how I wish you could see me now,
and how I desire that all this time
that I’ve been praying,
you’re really sitting there, listening,
gazing at me,
loving me,
as you’ve always done before.

How I pray
that you have not really gone,
that you haven’t left my side at all,
not even for a short lonely while…

That all the while I have been weeping
you’re holding out your hand
catching my every tear.

That all the while I have been praying
you’re praying with me, too
and with all the angels
in whose company
you now walk amongst.

Who knows indeed?
Who knows?
Maybe you haven’t really left,
maybe the love we’ve had
has woven a golden thread
between you and me,
a thread that shall remain
as surely as love remains,
a thread that shall draw us together
forever
and we’ll never ever need
to say goodbye…

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You may want to see Jocelyn’s book “Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief” — click here.