A love worth suffering

Closing my eyes I can still see the window framing the fog,

the shadows of the old palm trees, the lighthouse, the satellite tower,

your broken heart, son, a faint sound, a groan deep in the night,

a restless body in your bed, fighting angry against dreams.

My closed eyes remember you then, sitting opposite me,

writing your magnificent stories on the afternoon air,

your excited hands speaking about your future and your plans,

your broad and caring shoulders now bending forward,

the new and the old sigh in your frown and in your fingers

wringing through your hair, a stifled sound now a story never told,

a world so new you don’t feel like celebrating sorrow, pilfering of memories

never to be remembered, a painful peace, and still, a stranger to these empty stories,

the streetlamp underneath your window a foreign, foolish darkness.

I can do nothing more than love you more than your accumulated sorrow.

By Elizabeth Viljoen. 

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Tags: A Friday Thought, Change, Editor's Note, Elizabeth Viljoen, family