16 September 2014

Light from Darkness



I thought of something funny today and went to call you.
Since you're so newly gone, abruptly gone, I forgot
for one gift of a minute, the way I can't in night's long hours.
It's new to me since you're the first of us to go. Dad, at 98, says 

you learn to handle it after more and more deaths of loved ones, but 
I haven't mastered that detachment that doesn't succumb to
grief, doesn't get squeezed by grief's tight band,
doesn't wish for one more chance to say what I worry 

you didn't know: that I love you and miss you. Just that. Instead, 
I must trust you have peace, that you've gone from the formless dark
of death to the light described by poets and saints.


For Open Link Monday at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads.

8 comments:

  1. I am not sure that it gets easier. I think death is always shocking, and though sometimes it is expected when it happens it is always unexpected. I don't think a caring person can EVER master detachment in dealing with the death of one loved. But I do think we must come to some resolution with the idea of death, as it is inevitable. Your last lines express so much. We do have to trust that our loved one has gone from formless dark to the light. Faith in that is so important!

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    1. I'm not sure it's firm faith, more like a glimmer of hope.

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  2. While we weep here on earth, I believe there is rejoicing and reunions in heaven.

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  3. Such a perfect prose poem. I am sorry for your loss, Mary. It never gets any easier, if you ask me. Sending you virtual hugs.

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  4. "…so newly gone". Powerful and so true. The post below I read - sounds like you had your family around you and it was a celebration of sorts… Hugs.

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