The man I never knew...

There was once a man

Handsome, strong, and able

Loving, kind, and honest.

Blue eyes rivaling the sky

He was once...or would have been.

Some say dreams are real

That life is the land of shadows,

Of unreal things we cling to

Forcing them toward solid form.

One shift of sand, one tilt of earth

And all we know is upside down.

In sleep this man is with me

But waking steals his face away

Leaving empty Mother's arms aching with the lack of his weight.

Some say God remembers.

“In God's memory”, they say he lives, so there is hope.

God is not forgetful, not even of sweet milky breath.

He knows things I do not, exists outside of Time.

So how does He recall those blue eyes?

Wrapped in infant flesh?

Grown to give sight to the most honorable of men?

Or as the Grandpa he will never be?

Where does his potential blossom...

Infant innocence and manly maturity unite?

Once a baby nestled in a Mother's arms

Tender breaths concluded all too soon.

One hundred eighty degrees...half a circle...incomplete, yet amazing in itself.

One hundred eighty years...two, maybe three lifetimes.

One hundred eighty months...so many nights flooded with full moon's light.

One hundred eighty days...a mere blink...not nearly enough to know the man who could have been.

It rained the day we saw him last,

His tiny shell dressed like such a man.

Dark clouds wrapped us up and the whole earth seemed to weep.

He journeys now in oceans deep and coastal waves,

Rippling ever outward, visiting lands those blue eyes never cast a gaze upon.

Yet still I cling, unable to bear the final parting.

Out of time, his leaving was.

Not correct...out of order...not as all should be.

Hence the ripping pain, always present, never ceasing.

Many days the Mother's eyes stay dry

Many nights a clawing grief shreds her dreams, raking its talons across her heart again.

How many band-aids does it take to soothe a severed limb?

The count continues.

There was once a man...or should have been.

There was once a mother to a son.

The number of completion swirls into view...

The eighth trip of the earth around the sun since his newborn cry sang into the night announcing his arrival.

A year of finishing...

Of learning how to conclude something that barely began.

Until then, the haunting...

by a man I never knew.