Poetry

I watched her from the recliner that sits a few feet from her hospital bed.  Her eyes were closed.  Her breathing even and peaceful.  Earlier, her eyes had been open, but her position dictated that she looked straight up at the ceiling rather than in the direction of our voices as we played a card game so near but so far from her.

Then the others left.  We were alone, she and I.  She no longer looked at the ceiling.  Her eyelids covered her stare.  Gentle harp music played from my computer, and I begin to type.....

Sleep on, Dear One,
In whose womb my heart once beat,
Whose eyes open only occasionally now
And warily. Seemingly unfocused,
Yet searching for the recognizable
In a world blurred
By senses dulled in ways unknown
Except to your Heavenly Father.
Once again, my heart beats close to yours,
And my eyes strain to see what yours see.
Sleep on, Dear One.
 
I'm thankful for the release of an unspeakable joy and a glorious pain that poetry enabled once again. That, to me, is the beauty of words--imperfect and incomplete as they are.  I look at them and own them.  I savor the holiness of the moments.  I embrace the mystery and my heart is healed, held and re-formed by the Heavenly Father, hers and mine.