After Sunrise

The spent shell of life:

motionless,

hollow,

grey.

The unknown terror:

tamed.

Time has no hold on those who pass away,

to where I do not know.

Seven minutes after sunrise on the seventh day,

of the seventh month,

stillness gives way to the restless beauty of dawn.

. . .


A poem written on the day when a person I had cared for and watched slowly die over a month with fear and confusion. A person for whom faith gave no solice or strength. A person in her ninety fifth year, who at the end needed nothing more than the warmth of a hand to hold.