A friend of mine passed recently after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer. I met her in the 8th grade, but we really hadn’t been in contact since graduation until after our 30-year graduating class reunion.
I had a dream about a year ago that I was there when she passed. It troubled me for hours until she posted something on Facebook and I knew she was still there. I wrote this poem on the truck while waiting for some proof of life from my friend.
I know her pain has ended. I know her struggle has been a hard one, but her smile and laughter and the way she tried to be positive throughout the whole ordeal have been an inspiration for all who knew her.
We will all miss you, Velvet. Thank you for your strength, your presence, your friendship.
There is a balance to the world
that takes the day out across the sea
with the evening clouds,
moments returned in the waves
washing back over the sand
and into the visions of our slumber.
There is a calm in this retched place
now that the war is finally over,
clenched fists slack as the pain drains away
and what was life is stilled,
at piece in the twisted covers
of one last sleepless night.
There is a balance to the world
that has taken away another of our bravest
to escape with the movement of wind through curtains,
only to return in the fading snapshots
our hearts hold dear,
moments of smiles and hugs and laughter
from when times were better for all of us.
There is a balance,
yet I find my footing unsure,
my faith rocked,
my steps unstable now that you have gone.
_______________
—Previously published in Last Stanza Journal #1.
| Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there. |
Velvet’s “smile and laughter and the way she tried to be positive throughout the whole ordeal have been an inspiration for all who knew her.” My Uncle Vernon was like that. I didn’t myself visit him in the hospital in his final days, but I listened to the awe-filled report of my oldest sister’s husband, who spoke as though he had been present when Socrates drank the hemlock.
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