Still Waters

Goodbye to all that.

I don’t recall exactly when it was

that the darkness decended on intimacy.

All I do know is that the coldness froze my soul.

And then there were the other things…

the things that entered in uninvited –

importunate visitors all.

The silences and the things left unsaid.

But these were just the passive things…

the not doing and the not saying.

Then came, fast on their flanks, like an unstopple barrage –

aggression, foul words and false accusation.

I understood that these were things

that came from the depths of your unhappiness,

from unreachable places where I could not go,

even though I tried.

Like a black hole sucking in light,

leaving nothing but emptyness in its wake –

save a dull ache.

It was a place I could not enter;

I could not join you there,

for my soul does not feel the things that you feel.

Yours is a dark place that leaves behind

emptyness rancour and a foul vapour.

How many times did I try to pull you back,

but in the end I had to let you go

or be consumed myself.

And then there were the children –

their young lives could not be so devoured.

And so it is we part,

having travelled the same journey these 30 years.

Of course there are regrets – how can there not be.

But in the final weighing of events – there was no choice.

To stay would be to drag the whole edifice into the void –

into the jaws of destruction.

But to say adieu, is to save that which is good,

wholesome and beautiful.

And what of the memories;

are they to be discarded like so many

dried and dessicated skins shed from some great serpent?

No, for I shall not allow them to be.

The jewels of memory remain,

shining and sustaining their brilliance

in the setting of the sun.

And new memories shall be made –

because I will it so…

After Robert Graves.