A Shadow Joined the Table

In a country home safe and warm- family as busy as bees hustling and bustling.

There, the comfort of stuffing and cranberries wafting from oven hot, turkey and ham bathing in the crock pots.

A good friend arrives, hugs and kisses, carrying her pie hoping it will please the missus.

Snacks, games, and laughter abound. We settle down after one round.

Hands are held, heads are bowed and grace is said.

Simple and thankful we break our bread.

Stuffed to the brink, we cannot blink.

Pie is going to have to wait.

We set up another game, and that was when the phone rang.

Minutes pass jokes and giggles last.

Footsteps can be heard creaking softly on the old floor.

Upon her face, within the frame of the door, and in that moment I knew you were no more.

The food once soothing and full suddenly turned to lead.

Stomachs are heavy with dread.

Hugs between friends, a loved one exchanged, in a second the whole world had changed

For a frozen instant alone, my heart could not be borne.

The piece of it which had held you seemed now a dark and abandoned abyss.

Shock had simply crept over and numbed me in its wintery bond, and you I found, I could not miss.

You, who had been on the earth only the night before, my soul cannot simply grasp that I shall see you no more.

Many a year had gone by since last I saw you- just before we lost yet another.

Friends left, the so hoped for pleasing pie pristine and uneaten.

Delicious smells were now turning sour in just a single hour.

A silence inside was left, only softly sobbing my soul was a hollow bereft.

Comfort, love, and peace seemed a distant star, cold and far away.

Even kind words would not keep the sorrow at bay.

Night fell as a heavy blanket to fit a peaceful sleeper, yet suffocating the remnants of the day’s laughter ever deeper.

Gentle slumber eluded me, like a mournful dancing shadow, as softly I wept weakness into my pillow.

Woken to early morning, which the night still clung, dragging me from fitful sleep undone.

Slowly, seeming to show my internal pain in every aching bone, I dressed, combed, brushed, and packed.

Sat alone to watch as my loved ones hurried with bags to and fro, for you had lived so far, hurrying to the car to pay their final respects.

Yet my heart would find no such closure- I shall not be saying goodbye, or look upon your rest with my own eye.

I can only stay where I call home, these faded memories to fill the empty alone.

Facing the battle of already strained emotion, will I drown in this ocean?

So many souls already hold the candle of my love and so many more to come.

How many pieces of this heart will be taken, before it utterly is breaking?

How much till there is a heart no longer?

Still, I stay watching as the numerous treasures of your life gather, even though I’d rather.

Shall they kiss your face, lined with years of life?

Caress hands which held so many apples of your eye?

O’ how I hate my own weakness, and that I cannot quietly grieve, there is no reprieve!

Is my being as deep as well, yet will not contain the swell?

That I could rewind time and a final kiss on rosy cheek would be thine.

Caress gentle hands which patted my cheek.

Share a giggle from a joke we would speak.

Not even in death could I do this for you, even though my heart well-meaning and true.

Yet, frosty pink and dusty blue dawn sought to cheer me anew.

A small smile that morning did appear upon that morning clear.

Knowing you passed quietly with family near.

Until we meet again dear, I will never stop wishing you here.