Missing Someone
When they moved in the house he said
"I’ll fix that gate one day."
In later years he changed his tune—
"Creaking gates hang longest—look at me!"
She came to love the gate, it told her things,
told her when he was coming home.
After the funeral her son said
"I’ll get that gate replaced, Dad
never got around to it."
The new gate is silent, swings smooth
on oiled hinges, closes
with a well-oiled click,
but the music has gone out of her life
And she is left with a feeling of betrayal.
R.P Fenwick wrote that. His own experiences helped to make him sensitive both to the capacity of love to transform dissonance into music and to the awful pain lovers feel at profound loss.
Ah, sin, to hell with you!
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.