SOLACE
© Brenda Joy
Winner, 2017 Bush Poetry Competition, Boyup Brook Country Music Festival, Boyup Brook, WA.
I am lying here beside you
as your body’s wracked and heaving
with your laboured, rasping breathing
as you face the throes of death.
How I’ve prayed, as trials have tried you,
for a deeper understanding
but the hurt’s been too demanding.
Now I wait your final breath.
While my heart is full of sorrow
for I know we’ll soon be parting
and the grief’s already starting,
I am flooded by my tears.
With the dawn of the tomorrow
I’ll be left behind without you
and the things I’ve loved about you
will be lost to lonely years.
No more joyful reminiscing
of our sunlight days of laughter
and our plans for ‘ever after’
in our grey, nomadic years
Oh the closeness I’ll be missing
on the farm and in our travels
Now the thread of life unravels
and my hopes have turned to fears.
My protective arms enfold you
but your struggle’s all-consuming
as the call of death is looming
and survival forces wane.
Though my heart cries out to hold you
with its beating I am bleeding
tears of anguish. I am pleading
your release from earthly pain.
As the pastel dawn is breaking
I can feel a peace ascending
and your final battle’s ending.
Now your body’s lying still.
Yet there can be no mistaking –
I can sense your new-found glory
as you start another story
in attune with Spirit’s will.
Now I know you’re in God’s keeping.
Though my tortured heart is grieving
I’ll find solace from believing
in the life that lies beyond.
So despite long years of weeping
all the sorrows will be righted
when once more we’re reunited
through love’s everlasting bond.
Return to 2017 Award-Winning Poetry.
Terms of Use
All rights reserved.
The entire contents of the poetry in the collection on this site
is copyright. Copyright for each individual poem remains with
the poet. Therefore no poem or poems in this collection may be
reproduced, performed, read aloud to any audience at any time,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without prior written permission of the individual
poet.
Return to 2017 Award-Winning Poetry.