Death is a firefly,
A flick’ring cheat that glimmers in the dark,
And draws us in with promises of light
Deeper into pits where sorrow breeds,
Where the sun is but a tale the old once told,
And the moonlight stares a cold unblinking eye.
A child lies dead hard by my neighbour’s door,
And I am struck into a hollow stillness.
My senses reel; my spirit finds no edge.
I think I break, but breaking makes no sound.
The hush of death sits heavy on my chest
And presses breath from me with gentle hands.
There festers something poisonous within.
A venom thought that spreads from vein to will,
And turns my blood against the man I was.
I drown in tears that never reach my eyes;
The waves of grief beat hard upon my soul
And leave me wreck’d upon its naked shore.
It calls old pictures back,
When we were small, and life wore coloured cloth,
A coat of wonders, stitched with awe and play,
Bright as the sky when storms have wash’d it clean.
But now death hunts us close, a patient beast,
That learns our steps and waits where we grow tired.
O moon, thou once wert compass to the lost,
A silver promise hung in tarry night;
Now art thou but a distant judging eye
That marks our burials and learns no tears,
And sees us grope for meaning where none grows.
Yet death is still that firefly.
So fair, so slight, so falsely sweet of glow.
We chase its charm, believing it a sign,
Till we are lost, and it slips out of sight
And leaves us poorer in a thicker dark.
By night, grief walks like thieves upon the street,
And finds the crack in every armoured heart.
A little illness. Poverty. Despair.
Death needs no shout; it whispers, and we fall.
Thus are we shown our frail mortality.
When children die, is death made more unkind?
Or is it only faithful to its law?
I know not.
Care not.
This only know I well:
It hurts. It hurts beyond all measured speech.
I stand here stiffen’d in my frozen grief,
And long to speak with him beneath the earth
To tell him secrets never meant for graves,
To kiss the stone that bears his tender name,
To lie beside him and let darkness close
And make of silence something merciful.
I will not weep. My eyes are parch’d and bare.
Yet in my voice there hums a cradle-song.
Perhaps he dreams, and thinks himself at rest.
Perhaps I shall lie down with him one day
But not today.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Marco Livi on Unsplash