Patience

OCT 2023

A little poem for a thoughtful Sunday morning. Not too said I hope, more that those who have passed can still touch our lives in some way.

She died last week, just slipped away, her paper hand un-holding mine,
The pain I felt not dimming still, despite the ticking-by of time,
My other patients mourned her loss, but I knew we would meet again,
That death is not the final bow and elements of some remain.

I never knew when she’d appear; sometimes no shape was there at all,
She made her presence felt in ways that would beguile me and enthral,
First, a cool breeze over me sent a shiver up my spine,
A whisper of a word or song as her world briefly joined with mine.

Why did she linger in this place? Was River Stix too great to ford?
Was there some matter unresolved to keep her here within the ward?
Her final visit yesterday was but a whisper of a ‘yes’,
And as the coolness slipped away I pictured her, at last, at rest.