A Poem ‘ In Remembrance of my Husband’
The Day You Died
On normal days, you’d always ring;
Or I would; it was our anodyne;
But one day, my Love, you did not ring,
The day the ‘phone refused to bring
You to me, perfect, unalloyed,
That day, I called into the void…
Instead of joy and laughs, I cried:
It was the day that you had died…
I called and called, but no response,
That day, the world made little sense.
Your silence told me that you had died,
My Love, my Love, Oh how I cried.
I return, forever, to the day you died,
Did you run, or try to hide?
Did you have time to think at all?
Know that you were, you are, my All?
Did you suffer, did you cry?
Did you know that I would try
To be with you through all the smoke?
Would have heard you, had you spoke?
Did you hear me say to you,
“My Love, I love you, only you”?
Do you know that I still stare
At your wondrous form, at your silent hair?
Oh, tell me you heard me speak to you,
As you struggled in that infernal hue
Of chaos, fumes, and shock that grew
Into our loss…my loss of you….
The horror is that I’ll never know
What you went through in that moment, slow,
When the world was changed, and I was left
Without your smile, of your life, bereft.
Of what you felt as you saw a ‘plane
At your life, your whole, take aim…
Did you see it? I think you did;
My Love, you saw it, base, sordid.
My Love, tell me that I was there
To hold you tight, and stroke your hair..
Tell me, my Darling, that you knew
That I was there to envelop you…
That moment haunts me all the time
Of you who fell, full in your prime;
I can’t imagine what you felt,
As I, before you, broken, knelt…
Oh, how I’m tormented by that day,
That took you, so cruelly, far away,
That saw the sun set on your smile,
That leaves me stunned and immobile..
I called, and called into the void,
Hoping so to deny, avoid
What happened to my shining sun,
To will away a life, begun…
I told myself you had not died,
Knowing that you’d not survived…
Oh, Love, I rang but no response,
My love for you was never more intense…
What were your thoughts as you saw the ‘plane
Coming towards you, taking aim?
Oh, that you suffered, I cannot bear
The thought of it: that I was not there
To comfort you as you closed your eyes
To our life together, to our coveted prize;
And at your pain, at your last breath,
That I did not feel it upon my breast…
That I could not kiss you, as you left
A world from which I too feel cleft:
For now I’m in a silent place,
Without your laugh, and without your grace…
Oh, tell me that you did not feel
The hate of those, who’d come to steal
You from my joy, and happiness,
That left my mornings colourless…
Tell me, only, that you smiled, and smiled
At a love, as pure as a newborn child;
That you had no thoughts to make you sad,
That of our love you were supremely glad..
Tell me, oh Love, that you felt no pain,
That only thoughts of my love for you came
To you, in our very darkest hour,
That you knew you had all the power
To reach me, and tell me that you would know
That my love for you will forever grow
In all that I think and do and say,
That you will never fade away.
