Gone Too Soon - A Poem For Gran

I guess you could say I'm handling it.

I still laugh, sometimes loudly,
Sometimes in a fit of giggles.

I still gaze up at the stars on clear nights
And marvel at the expansive universe.

I still snuggle with my kitties,
Adoring their silky coats and vibrating purrs.

I still eat my favorite chocolate, closing my eyes
So as to fully absorb the creamy sweetness.

But even so...

I still expect to find your letter in my mailbox,
The envelope covered in your near-illegible scrawl.

To see your closed hand resting on the breakfast table
As you eat your "scrumpy" cereal with banana slices.

To smell your Mushroom Roast and your Date Slices,
Your bathroom soap and your Yardley Roses spray.

To hear you saying, "I'm just going to have me tea,"
And, "Righty-o, then, Love."

And I can still see you in my mind's eye,
Waving from your driveway,
On tiptoe, arm raised high over your head,
As I drove away for ever.
And I know that you loved me.
And I know that, had you left me
In ten, twenty, or a hundred years' time,
You would still have been gone too soon.


-Skye Nightingale, 2006

Moving On

I see you, from behind my glass prison---
Real as you've ever been,
Standing, smiling, on the station platform,
But you don't see me;
Only a reflection on the train window
In the afternoon drizzle.

I try to absorb each detail,
To capture the solidity of the sight of you,
To retain the sweetness of your essence
In these final moments,
Knowing all the while my effort's futility,
Yet staging once again my frantic fight.

Please…
please let it be different this time…

The train lurches.
I reach for you, urgency tightening my chest.
In my vision, my hand transcends the window…
But reality is pain;
My hand hits glass,
Scattering the trickling raindrops on the pane
That are my tears.

Then, like an apparition,
You fade from my sight.
In desperation,
I reach with my soul and grasp you,
Clasp you to me
As you dissolve, immaterial, through my mind’s arms...

The train moves on,
Leaving everything behind.
Peace comes only in forgetting,
And all that stays is emptiness.


-Skye Nightingale, 2002

Falling

Falling again,
Eternal falling
Through the swirling vortex of my mind,
Past sinews of feelings,
Past racketing thoughts,
Past shadowy humans going here and there
With things to do...
I was once one of them.

Now I'm only falling,
Passing life,
Passing death,
Passing meaning;
All a senseless kaleidoscope
As I fade into terrible freedom,
With no destination...


-Skye Nightingale, 2002

Resolution

With sodden feet,
I trudged that well-worn path:
A circle, laid by insubstantial hope
For comfort beckoning just beyond my grasp.
In that cruel place
Where love is always wrong,
And caring bitter,
The cycle continued, and still I hoped.


No more.


I turn away, toward reluctant freedom,
Treading a new, straight, heavier path
With the grimness of a known end,
And finally, with my own spade,
Burying my undead heart ...
Love's light lost,
And sunlight pouring down in mockery
On my face of stone.


-Skye Nightingale, 2002