In Memoriam, J.E.D.W.
--David Wetzel
I.
The year was born like other years
With no foreboding on its face
No hint of malice to displace
Our peace, or intimate our tears.
The year delivered us a boy
His little life had just begun
And I, proud father of a son,
Savored swelling, pond’rous joy.
We thought home heretofore complete
Yet his native charm elated
Each member as it infiltrated
Each heart’s love and each heart beat.
Mother’s full arms filled up the more
As nurture-needers her surrounded
Her nourish glands the more abounded
Through God’s grace, beyond her store.
She gave him life, and he was hers
She breathed on him, she breathed him in
He touched her as she touched his skin
Wrapped up in love, and love endures.
II.
It dawned like any other day—
That day that changed our course of fate
That day we can’t escape but hate
That day that took our son away.
The hour, like other hours, tolled
And we, oblivious to alarm
Worked on while struck the fatal harm—
The peal rang out, mournful and cold.
Deaf to appeal it rang and rang
Pleas for repeal the knell drown out
Its final verdict left no doubt
Or hope; just lingering harangue.
Incessant insistence crammed the news—
Unmoved and jutting, here to stay—
The stone would not be rolled away
Or made to disappear from view.
Nor could an escape be found
How to escape? –there were no walls
Or latches to these dungeon halls
Mere iron facts that held us bound.
No highway drive or distance run
No shallow laugh or fleeting sleep
No leisure time or social heap
Could break us free from what was done.
III.
Night would come; we’d stay awake
We’d talk with Death; He held the trump
Then, draped with weight, we’d fin’ly slump
And pray that morning would not break.
We dreamed projections of our longing;
We saw him happy, in our arms—
His eyes were clear, his cheeks were warm—
We stayed asleep, our dreams prolonging.
Phantasmal fingers found our suite
Reminding us of what we knew
They made our fantasies untrue
They violated our retreat.
They showed us scenes of what had been
The hours of holding our dead son
The goodbye after he was gone
Kisses on tears on his cold skin.
The noonday sun, a former friend
Pierced us with his callous ray
Welcomed us to painful day
And brought our dreaming to an end.
As reality haunted slumber
Wakefulness resembled dreaming
Listless wand’ring in time’s streaming
It flowed on; we only lumbered.
IV.
Dark, windy clouds possessed the sky
Snowfall seized the hardened ground
December’s austere winter found
Us still frozen in July.
Nature’s spirit matched our mood
And its onslaught spared no one
(Nor did nature spare our son)
We continued yet to brood.
Christmas with its merriment
And lights and gifts and songs and holly
Would surely coax us to be jolly
And lay aside our dull lament.
It danced like sparks across the floor
Taunting, pleasing just the eye
Unable full warmth to supply
Leaving cold a vacant core.
To celebrate the birth of Christ
We drew our kids in an embrace
We noticed, then, the empty space
Should not their presence have sufficed?
Does Christmas rescue the bereft?
As faith abides, does calm increase?
Did we miss the proffered peace?
At least Santa came. And then he left.
V.
The New Year came with nothing new
Its calendar foretold no change
Its blank dates a sprawling range
Of days we’d walk morosely through.
Doldrums ruled ‘til we grew tired
Of tasteless numbness and we sought
Respite in the earthen pot
Of roiling pains on boiling fires.
They proved that we were still alive
They made our waking moments real
(We’d rather hurt than nothing feel)
Our sensibilities revived.
We sweat out passion in the vat;
We sat and sweat ‘til we grew weak
We inhaled mist that made us meek
We learned from anguish as we sat.
VI.
Deep joy is not without deep pain
Those two foes are somehow friends
And while we would erase the yin
Would we, too, forego the yang?
With neither lived there’s only Eden
Innocent naiveté
The color spectrum cast in grey
A paradise I don’t believe in.
God’s joy is an endless fountain;
His sorrow an eternal well.
No matter on what sphere we dwell
There are no valleys without mountains.
VII.
We bowed our heads and made the off’ring
Trusting that Divine Design
Has tempered soul steel a long time—
That God would sanctify our suff’ring.
Like water soaking through old wood—
Its min’rals slowly calcify
Over time they petrify
The timber, then, is changed for good—
Torture tutored, and did more;
As it pulsed through every vein
It coursed with purpose to ordain
Transmuting fiber as it poured.
It changed our eyes, lifted our gaze
We looked past ephem’ral guise
Beyond where the horizon lies
Toward the promised future days.
It caused our unarmed hearts to break
Open, yes—in pieces, no;
It opened us to others’ woes
It made us tender to their aches.
And sensitive to bliss as well
Plain rocks (and moments) sometimes hold
Oft-unnoticed flecks of gold
That leave contentment as they melt.
VIII.
Light appeared, but not like lightning
It seeped, it crept, it softly lit
But as it came, we noticed it
Bit by bit our wasteland brightening.
Intermittent, in its time
Not rushing toward an asymptote
A sine wave on an upward slope
Alternating falls and climbs.
With our tears, it ebbed and flowed—
We sometimes sank in midnight tides;
The next day’s sun our cheeks then dried—
A microcosm of the road.
Earth circles Sun—there’s day and night;
The moon—it wanes and then it waxes;
The world—it spins on tilted axis;
And springtime moves toward greater light.
IX.
Early on, the Lord assured
That as He lives, eternally,
Not all is bad in tragedy
Good things will come; we have His word.
(Abraham and Sarah both
When God promised them a son,
Though age prevented having one,
Judged faithful Him who made the oath.)
We move toward the future good,
Though life be fine enough today
We long for something far away
We sense it’s real, though dimly viewed.
Questions linger but don’t vex
Though answers may elude us now
Faith smoothes furrows in our brow
(But we carry them on our trek).
And bear the ache in our breast pocket.
Some may sometimes see the bulge
Yet, the weight we don’t divulge
Nor the contents of the locket.
But hold the mem’ry of our son
And while he’s gone, we save his place
He’ll one day fill this empty space
And complete again our home.
We know where our hope comes from;
We’re living for a post-death date—
Resurrection morning’s gate;
We trust in God: good things will come.
