Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

emotional back-breaker......
death can so easily snap what was once whole

I see my old friend smiling in my mind
I see the elfin glint in his eyes

and I'm satisfied that I didn't go
to the sterile hospital room to see the pain

to see the tubes down the throat that prevent speech
to see the drugs drip through the IV's

that deaden and distort the life of the person
I once knew, and I know he doesn't need me there

And I just keep thinkin', if I just concentrate hard enough
I can make him come back, if only I could better focus

but no invocation can raise the dead
and no mind-tricks can raise my spirits

though I do find a bit of comfort knowing that my
Friend's Spirit has risen, 'cause I know without a doubt he grabbed my foot

the other night when I was lying asleep in bed, to Waken me
to let me know it's okay

so live in peace in your new home Henry
thanks for clearing up my concerns

only bodies stop working

I was there too - watched my dad exhale for the last time, watched the lights behind his eyes go out, watched his chest slowly fall while the last of his essence drained away til there was nothing left in the bed but an empty husk... All that summer we'd ridden a roller coaster with him as he'd lurched from one medical crisis to another, always rebounding, but only partway each time... Like a hill gradually eroded by rain, he crumbled away, from patriarch to a mumbling thing in a wheelchair. Lung cancer - not a nice way to go. Thank Cosmos for dreams, where he still visits me occasionally as he was Before.

the process of physical disintegration, as we witness and try to make contact with the inner dynamo,
a lesson that never quite sticks

appreciate the feedback, the stories we share...

This is a moving poem. It evolves into a good place----the grief is certainly not gone but you have come to terms with it. You have transformed it.

thanx dan....always appreciate the feedback