Posted in Love

Empathy

Fistfuls of light
thrown by sombre trees
strike unlikely sentinels –
weathered soft toys
bleached wooden trains
threadbare windmills,
scruffy, gentle markers, softening brutal inscriptions.

Dearly missed,
Aged –
16 hours,
two days,
three weeks.
five months.
Kate, Anna, Kyle, Melanie
never progressed to surname
will never require differentiation.

School remains unknown
as does inequality
and betrayal.
Innocence and loss
sway quietly together
grief’s slow waltz
painful and sweet.

When melancholy won
or luck felt picked upon
I came here,
perspective –
loss, what could be more?
She was often there, always it seemed with daffodils,
whatever the month
and always smiled
a smile of compassion, understanding and encouragement.

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.