Where have you gone?

by Amanda White

I’m making beds these days with such care and correction
Aligning
Ageing
The complex consideration of objects
This bowl with this leaf and that pebble we found somewhere but no longer remember
Only the shelf remains the same
Blank and wanting
And every shadow play is always a ghost – of you
The promise of the time we never had and yet
Let slip…

There are patterns everywhere
I want to see patterns everywhere
This is where I really live
In the clutter and tinnitus
Trying to find a way

Today I have a plan
Letting my shadow blend and lengthen as the afternoon tires of me

I take myself out
Without direction
to wander
linger

Where have you gone?

I feel you close but just can’t grasp that moment
Our last goodbye
We never knew was our last goodbye
And all I want to do is say hello again
Hello again

The shape of you
Never really fits the shape of me
But I keep you
And see you

Every village has a church where bells chime a little out of time
Perhaps… Like us
Cracks in the old stone and sanctuaries and shrines offering
Something, nothing, everything…

This old olive tree still here year after year outlasting us all
And not wanting to see deeper or remember other times
You would have said “What a lovely afternoon”

I walk on
Take a photograph
Share it with friends
As if everyone can be here and feel what I feel
….. except of course you

I find again a hidden sadness
Still after all these years
Not able to cry
I mean really weep
And let the sorrow taste and hold me
Because I don’t want you to ever leave me
Please Please Please don’t ever ever leave me

Now it’s raining
And after the ache of a dry month
I know
You made it happen

I’ll keep you dry
Away from the thunder that scared you so much
Here
Safe
Closer than closer
Take you home

Lay you to rest

No prayers

Just silence

Which only we understand.