The strange, silent visitor

Death you came to us

A strange silent visitor

For whom we could never be prepared

Suddenly what we loved was gone

And I had no time to say goodbye

The farewell was unspoken

And the pain of those unspoken words and feeling

Lingered over every new arrival

Haunting each

With a silent fear

Cast into shadows

How could I know

When the next goodbye would come?

Goodbye was something

Impossible, then

For me to choose

But revisited upon me

So many times

While my heart ached with the burden of all

That was so impossible to express

Now the surrender

To the emergence

Of all that was buried

In the unearthing of these bones

Lies a deep and powerful awakening

These things that life gives us

Death or loss steals away

We can never be prepared

And yet life asks us to live it

And love it

While we travel

All its tangled by ways

Even as we walk them

Accompanied by great sorrow

Are our souls equal to the task?

 

Photo image credit : Ingo Dumreicher