A Change In Mind

You are Gone - a Poem for Deborah

You are gone.
A meteor blazing your trail
Across the dark sky of my soul,
Where you journey to
Lies beyond my understanding;
My soul may know the way.

You are free.
Like an eagle’s soaring spirit,
Released from earthly bounds
You leave behind your pain,
Your sorrows and your burdens,
Help me not to take them on.

I am so weary,
Drained by the leach of sadness
Sucking on my bones until they ache
With longing and with grief,
This cavernous sense of loss.
Who is it that I cry for?

It hurts so much.
I feel like a soft toy gouged open,
Stuffing knocked out of me,
Leaving me limp and flat,
An empty body whose soul has fled;
Did it leave with you?

I want to let go.
I want to soar above the earth with you,
To lay my sorrows down and be pure spirit
Yet life calls me powerfully,
Love holds me to this earth.
This is the parting of our ways.

I have a life to live,
A designated path to keep ,
People who are depending on me
To pull rabbits from hats and walk high wire,
While simultaneously being
The still, calm centre of their universe.

It still hurts too much,
Pain graws at my thoughts;
I don’t want to play this game of grief.
Can I stop it now, curl into a foetal ball?
Seek the dark warmth of my mother's womb,
And stop the bleeding of my heart.

I don’t want to grow up.
It is much too hard.
I want to be a child again,
Playing rope, innocent of grief,
Death has not touched me yet.
I want those soft blue skys.
Please let me be a child again.

I feel tainted by this anger,
Raging at the dying of your Light.
You fought so hard to stay alive,
Live out the sweetness of your days,
For one more gentle touch,
For one more night of love.

I wish that I could cry,
Wash away the bitter thoughts,
Excise this corrosive misery;
Feel the touch of joy upon my soul,
Live the happiness you fought for,
The precious gift of life.

And this too shall pass,
As all dark nights creep into dawn,
Golden fingers stretching out
Across the blackened sky ,
Nudging us awake from our bad dreams,
To see the light of day again.