Shipwright - Trudie Shannon

When they say,
How are you?
I speak of you gently as if your dying
Was just the 'way of life' to be expected some time, by all of us.
"It was hard but…" "It’s one of those things?"
Then the awkward pause, the grinding to a halt
The horribly hesitant full stop before I respond with
The "I'm okay or I'm fine" line that lets them off the hook.
But, without company
Life seems to have more clearly defined edges,
Has become more intensely graced with colour.
Every sound resonates like a chorale in a cathedral.
I witness a myriad things, little things, momentous things
And yearn to tell you, yearn to hear the intonations of your voice in response
But all of it, every facet of this potent living
Amplifies your absence and with that
My rudderless ship drifts on foreign seas
Where once I knew the nuance of every wave
And could match the winds to oppose all currents and the many storms.
Now my ship drifts and turns with every eddy,
Spins on its own axis while the sails flap forlornly.
So for the time being, I've battened down the hatches and
I'm letting the tides and the currents do as they must.
If you are watching, bear with me
It takes time to learn to be a shipwright.

Trudie Shannon