Reckoning

At home I draw comfort from an afternoon lengthening out with shadows falling from cloudy skies interspersed with blue

I am found again here In this place Freed from endless distractions outside Reminding me of how lost and untethered I was all those years ago

Death came so suddenly to us Within several weeks you were gone Dad

And just perhaps At this time of year Echoes of that time are around me

I think of the ghost of loss You left behind Dogging us all in different ways And why now Its so hard for some to fully participate In the wake of this fresh loss

I weep with the knowing of it And of how powerless I am To do anything

But feel it

Silently I gather these knowings around me here

As Jasper snores I feel the sense of worlds fracturing Realities we lived within dissolving And of the tectonic plates of our existence shifting Carrying us toward Disconnection and a silence that is full of the noise of unexpressed feeling

All I can do now is draw comfort What good will reaching out do? We each exist in our own worlds United only for moments That then disappear Carrying us on to our separate fates To our personal reckoning That only we can decide whether or not to face