rudderless...

i am thinking now
of the labors of love
and how they follow us;
of the small gestures
and the gentle touches that heal.

i am remembering a time
when pain
wasn't your constant;
when your laughter would trill,
in jubilant counterpoint,
to the melody being sung
by the loved ones
around you.

what stifled your joyous harmony?
what silenced your song?

when did this dark sadness
become the thing
that held your hand
while it choked you?

what choices left you in these murky waters,
swimming for the shores of your well-being
from a hospital bed?

how did you get
so ...
lost?

did you send up a flare?
tap out an s.o.s.?
was there a message in a bottle
flung from the cliffs of your delicate psyche
that could be found
on a distant shore
and recognized
as a cry for assistance?

you were rudderless,
adrift,
and
no one knew.

there was no dove with an olive branch
to guide us to your hurts.

no faithful dog to let us know
you'd fallen down the well.

were we so blind that none of us saw you?
so deaf that we could not hear your whisper-quiet pleas?

did you think you could go it alone?
did you think you had to?

i'm thinking now of your son --
a grown man
looking like a lost child --
feeding you ice chips from a plastic spoon.

this
was an act of deepest caring,
magnified
by the vibrating panic
humming silently
beneath the sounds of the machines
hooked into you
to track your vitality
(as if any machine
could truly do that).

endless love and endless pain
were wrapped so tightly around each other
in that moment,
that it rendered it
impossible
to identify
where one started
and
the other finished.

humbled,
i crept out the door
and
wept quietly
in the hallway
fearing the worst,
hoping for the best.
and
praying
for you to know
how cherished
you truly are.

i am thinking now
of the labors of love
and how they follow us...

© Tanya Anguita