“Remembering

By

Declan J Connaughton


He watched him die,
Saw the life slipping away
Amid the tears and the prayers –
Time standing still,
An unreality about it –
Can’t be happening – don’t want to know.
Still, the time was upon them.
As it would eventually wash over
The gathered crowd,
Assembled there to witness the end
But, not wanting to.
The son had seen the dead laid out,
Acquaintances, mostly,
But still feeling that frightening closeness –
Death is near.
And with death comes the end of an era,
A chapter in the boy who is a man now.
The years have gone so quickly –
The passage of time suddenly unwelcome,
A thing to be resisted, to be halted,
To be slowed down with effort of will.
But nothing can stand still,
And with the passage of each hour
His father sleeps ever more deeply,
Breathing shallow, and shallower still.
The face is not lined with age or care of hardship,
But time has set it’s mark upon his heart,
And now the breathing stops –
All at an end.
Where is he now, this father?
The son struggles to believe – does believe,
But cannot be sure,
Nobody can.
The son wipes his tears and sees the mother –
And holds her hand,
And will continue on her journey with her now

© 2009 Declan J Connaughton