A look into my heart 1988

There or Gone?

Were you there
That part of you that lives eternally?
Did you hear my muffled footsteps
approach your final place of rest?
Or feel my weakened knees sink down beside your grave?
Or sense my tightened anguish
as I grasped the grass above you
with clenched and trembling fists?

Did my tears touch you
as they rolled down my cheeks
and fell through your earthen cover?

I brushed the winter leaves from your stone,
tenderly, as I once had brushed the smudges from your face.
I traced the carved lines of your name and birth and death,
and remembered all the features of your vibrant, youthful face.

I smoothed the ruffled grass
as I once had smoothed your blankets in your other resting place.
But your marker is all I have left to brush.
Your epitaph is all I have left to trace.
This 4 x 6 foot square of soil is all I have left of you,
to pick up after, to clean, and care for and--

No! I can't love this place as I once loved you.
In many ways, I despise it, as it separates me from you.
0h, if the horrors and realities of death and decay were not so,
I would tear the soil away with my bare hands
and rip the walls of your tomb asunder,
lift you out of the cold bowels of the earth,
grasp you to my breast, and hold you there forever.

Did you hear the soft patter of spring rains throughout the night?
And feel the brilliant sun break through the clouds
warming the soil around you?
Do you sense the earth awakening around,
new life springing forth?
Or has your soul soared out into the awakening dawn
in a reincarnated form,
to join again in life's eternal march?

Or has it floated off into another zone
to join your friends and loved ones around a heavenly throne?

Did you feel my shuffling footsteps as I blindly walked away?
And hear my cries of anguish as I tried to face today?
And sense my empty, broken heart, my spirit slowly wan?
Were you there, or have you gone?



Gary Hageman, TCF