Thursday, January 17, 2008

A Father's Grief

It must be very difficult
To be a man in grief,
Since "men don't cry"and "men are strong"
No tears can bring relief.
It must be very difficult
To stand up to the test,
And field the calls and visitors
So she can get some rest.
They always ask if she's all right
And what she's going through.
But seldom do they take his hand,
"My friend, but how are you?"
He hears her crying in the night
And thinks his heart will break.
He dries her tears and comforts her
,But "stays strong" for her sake.
It must be very difficult
To start each day anew.
And try to be so very brave-
He lost his baby too.



I Am Not A Fetus

I am not a fetus,
I am a babyPerfectly formed, but still.
I am not medical waste of no account
life’s flotsam and jetsam,
a ganglion of cells,to be discarded.

I was born with a name,
The product of my parents genes,
Their child.
But I came without breath,
And so I am not counted.
Or acknowledged

Had I taken a breath or made a whimper,
had a beating heart or moved a limb
I would have been called a baby.
To my mother I am her baby.
It’s how she calls out to me when she cannot sleep,
Pleading, imploring, asking, why.....?

Her love transcends time;
our bond of life is not broken,
I was here, flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood,
And I will always be.... Her baby.
Two souls... joined for eternity.


Just Those Few Weeks

For those few weeksI had you to myself.
And that seems to short a timeto be changed so profoundly.
In those few weeks
I came to know you
and to love you.
You came to trust me with your life.

Oh, what a life I had planned for you!
Just those few weeks
When I lost you.
I lost a lifetime of hopes, plans, dreams and aspirations.
A slice of my future simply vanished overnight.

Just those few weeks.
It wasn't enough to convince others
How special and important you were.
How odd, a truly unique person has recently died
and so few are mourning the passing.

Just a mere few weeks
And no "normal" person would cry all night
over a tiny, unfinished baby,
or get depressed and withdraw day after endless day.
No one would, so why do I?

You were those few weeks my little one
you darted in and out of my life too quickly.
But it seems that's all the time you needed
to make my life so much richer
and give me a small glimpse of eternity.

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