If Only

"Tell Me"
Tell me how it is done,
the cool, unmoved
indifference strewn
so casually about your life.
Yesterday's dust was
swept so swiftly
under the rug
never to dirty the feet
that walked upon it.
I envy the ability
to shut off the heart
and keep on living.

But the sun shines
upon you as you wake,
and the newness of the
day calls you from a
restful slumber to
rise up and thrive
without a care,
without a load to press
you down between
your sheets.

That I could be held by
you and am not
is my complaint.
I wake in the taunting
embrace of yesterdays gone,
the brisk foreboding of
tomorrows coming,
and today's unavailing
already exhausting my breath.

It is always the same.
The perpetual yearning
that I push down somewhere -
anywhere that it will
be undiscovered.
The pain,
my private groaning,
as I examine my
two able hands and
the irony of their
inability to bring you
back to me.

I say it always.
If only.
If only I could be swept up,
swept away,
off of my feet
and into the arms of
the man that would
hold me and never
let me go,
not for anything.
If only he were you.
If only it were you
that keeps me
and you that I keep.

Thinking of Jacey

"For Heather"
It was but a moment
that I held you,
the frailty of your newness
in my arms,
the angel breath
upon my cheek.
There was a song that
we sang just between us
without words
without notes
but whispered in the
quiet bond of
mother and child.

It was but a moment
that I felt the rhythmic
rise and fall of your
infant chest upon my own
and felt the imprints
of your tiny being
carved in the eternal
chambers of my heart.

It was but a moment,
and then you were gone
with an unrelenting
goodbye,
gone from my arms
to that heaven that sent you,
to God who gave you life.
There were tears
that could not keep you here
and hands that ached
to touch the warmth
of your satin cheek
for a moment longer -
a moment that would
not have been long enough.

It is but a moment,
sweet baby girl,
until this time will unravel
and the human pain of
our separation
will be swallowed up
in the morning rays
of our sweet reunion.
We will cry no more tears,
we will bear no more sorrows.
Our morning will come
with healing in its wings,
and forever will ride in
gloriously upon its back
with you and me,
mother and child,
in quiet song again.