A Lover’s Goodbye

Summer arrives
As promised;
The hills are
Swaddled in mist,
Moist in rain
The sun plays hide and seek
Behind clouds that whisper
Messages of hope
Deftly conveyed
Through silver linings

I greet summer
With an alchemy of emotions;
I met my love on a stormy summer’s day,
He left two summers ago -
Everything in between,
Remain in memory,
Fragile-
Dangerously slipping out of grasp, at times-
I look towards the pregnant skies
For a sign;
When will light enter
Through this gaping wound?

You are gone,
My center has come unhinged
I go spiralling
In circles, round and round;
When the momentum breaks
I shall be gone too!

The way we said goodbye
Weighs on my mind often
Sad as it was,
A lover’s goodbye
Could only be as sweet.

I can still hear you,
Calling out my name
All night long,
A staccato rhythm breaking
The silence of a sleeping world
All I could do in response
Was to hold your hand,
Holding on- holding back,
For as long as I could.

I could tell
Your eyes and ears
Were long gone,
They could no longer see nor hear
But you, my love,
Held on,
Unwilling to leave.
Your hand and heart,
Holding on to mine

I could feel the immensity
Of your unsaid words
In your whispered murmurs,
Your lips forming my name,
As the last tremble of life
Left your tired, beaten body.

If you could, you would have stayed
If I could, I would have held you back
But even the heavens run out of mercy sometimes
And, lovers too, must surrender
To the cruel call of time

Goodbyes are inexorable
Ours was meant
To be this way
Sad as it was,
A lover’s goodbye
Could only be as sweet.

Sometimes,
When you are least expecting it,
When he seems engrossed with his tiny cars,
Lined up in an imaginary traffic snarl,
My son turns to me and asks,
“Why did Abao die?”
His eyes in bewilderment,
An existential question
Hanging on his tiny shoulders
Barely four summers old
The question comes
As though this thought
Had been weighing on his mind
For endless nights,
As though this tiny question
Had all along been hidden,
In a corner of his mind,
Even while he ran around
Squealing in wild abandon.

This question
That you’re struggling with, son
Vexes me as much
Why? Why?
It hides behind an upturned mouth
A shoulder struggling to keep straight,
It hides behind empty pools
That pretend to be eyes,
We- my son and I,
Must answer this
As good Christians often do
With “Tis’ Thy will, my Father”
And pretend that
We are okay with this answer.