In the later years

I remember in the latter years

How your hair fell

Silvery gray upon your pillow

As you lay

Almost immobilised

I think of the times I sat and cried

Holding your hand

I always tried to understand

Your pain

And I saw those things that nearly broke you

While all around you others flustered

Unseeing

Rushing in with medication

It was so hard then

To stay silent

Was there any way to save you

Now at times I feel

History repeating

But my other sister

She can move

And then at times as I walk in the wind

I hear the ancestral spirits gather

How can I express the pain of loss they knew

And show the authorities there is another way

And how am I to know this therapy

Is not helping?

And so I choose at times to walk away

Shedding tears

As I watch my own hair turn slowly gray

And think of how anyone we deeply loved

Is never ever far from us

As long as we remember all of the pain

And the longing and the love

Deep inside our heart