Sitting on our favourite bench at Hyde Park
Watching the lake turn a golden brown
As the dusk sunlight touches the waters
The swans you used to love so much
Seem particularly animated today
Graceful under the glow of the cool evening sky
They bring cheer to my wounded soul
Just a little
But cheer nonetheless
Since you were gone
How long has it been – a year now?
I’ve grown like a vine around this lattice of pain
I’ve learned the rhythms of hurt
The routines of grief
And I dance –
No, dance is too cheerful a word
I hop, I sidestep, I stumble
Trying to shelter myself from the heavy clouds
Wrestling with the creeping shadows
I try to outsmart, outwit
Run a step faster
Swerve to the left and to the right
But the pain of missing you hunts me down
And Grief but places a bony finger on my paper heart
And I bleed
And I bleed
I imagine a thousand scenarios
In which I could have saved you
I dream blissful dreams
In which I find you
Just in time
I rip the ropes apart
And put my arms around your warm neck
And in our tight embrace
Of which eternity itself is unworthy
I comfort you with songs of hope
And mend your punctured heart
And like a swan, your neck will strengthen
And your will renewed
Your shadows defeated
You rise -
We rise
In undefeatable light
It is with the sound of swans that I awake
The dawn sunlight heavy on my eyes
A man on a bike on his way to work stops
Hey, you alright?
Yes, yes
I force a grin
He smiles back, gets on his bike, and off he goes
Forced grins
Empty smiles
Recurring shadows
Assaulting grief
And a broken heart – the unmendable kind
These are my closest companions
My surest sentries
As for now
I brace myself for another day without you
I dust off my coat and straighten my collar
And wrap a thick scarf around my neck
I keep the glow of you inside my soul
I wipe away these sudden tears
And I live –
Try my very best to live
I hope you know I love you in death
As I loved you in life
And I hope you are now truly at rest
That you are by a lake full of swans
With the dusk or the dawn light touching the waters just so
And that you sleep
Dreaming only of a thousand blissful things
With a soul that was once broken
But is now whole forevermore.
In memory of the thousands who lose their lives to suicide each year, and the loved ones they leave behind.
