Hoping, wishing, ignoring are all pointless,
Forgetting cannot happen.
Even though it sometimes lurks off in the corner,
It’s always here with me,
A colorless translucent reality that
Will never ever leave.

Coping with this soundless powerful company
is frightening and difficult,
my efforts hopelessly ineffectual.
The struggle to adjust to its absoluteness is numbing;
The aching alone-ness it generates permeates my mind
like radiation sickness.

This chilling demon, this Grief Ghost,
Sits with me as I read, gazes silently out the windshield
as I drive through life,
Crowds me as I sleep, twisting my dreams,
distorting my thoughts.
It weights my hands on the piano keys
and tugs at any small joys that arise,
Neutralizing the much needed curative benefits.

The despair of your departure will never pass,
Dear son, our lives once so intertwined, now forever rended.
Sometimes I float in an empty shell,
My day-to-day distorted beyond recognition,
Surreal and unfamiliar,
with this massive beast accompanying me.
I ache for your presence instead, and for
that natural completion your smile supplied.

Occasionally I glimpse your Soul at the nucleus
Far inside this creature’s cell walls,
--Well beyond my flawed protection
(Helplessly extended, never reachable)--
Suspended, as in amber,
Your still-glowing creative spark,
The meltingly poignant remembrance of our mutual love,
The motionless memory of the joy you brought.

And once in a great while your features resolve
at that deep core,
Your soft auburn hair,
Your delicate-fingered artist hands,
Your once cherubic child’s face grown longer and stronger,
reaching toward adulthood
--Infinite understanding now etched on your brow--
Your beautiful once life-filled eyes, now bottomless,
leading deep down into that unknown realm
where I long to join you, and will, in due time.

Good bye, sweet boy.
These have been privileged years we shared.
I am grateful this vestige of your essence lingers
at the heart of this towering ghost--
within me,
Shedding just enough warmth
For healing to begin.