How could I make your bloodshot, anxious looking
Eyes respond with a happy, baby smile?
How could I? How could I?
Your mouth shaped by a helpless mute cry.
Put these tears in Thy bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Was that last athletic kicking we felt
Your final, awful death wrestle?
Was it? Was it?
Painful, tearful hours passed before
I had the courage to hold your cold
Light body; cowardly hours passed
Before I stroked your peeling skin;
Lost hours passed before I kissed your
Crumpled, frowning forehead —
Just once & only once…..
Broken-hearted the little boy in me.
Tears pool even now in tired eyes;
This last look at you in your padded ark
Until the lid clicks shut, locked tight.
Then we tighten the stubborn screws.
Goodbye, goodbye, au revoir, slan.
Our spirit almosts snaps with grief¹s strain.
You gave us nights of sleepless tears,
Days of hopeful, painful prayer.
Your dreadful death made us cleave tighter
To The Man of Sorrows, The Redeemer, The Holy One.
Put these tears in Thy bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Goodbye, goodbye au revoir, slan
Little daughter whom I briefly met,
Little girl whom I hardly knew
Little sister to the big brother whom you never met
Who kissed you daily through a balooned belly
Who happily hugged you in sibling love
Little sister to the little brother who cries for you
lost in the dark forests, deep in the night.
What presents we give you to take
On your short upward journey:
A mother¹s poignant love-letter,
This father¹s rather wooden poem,
A photo of your big brother (aged almost four).
³When Jesus comes back, she will be alive.
Isn¹t that right, daddy. Isn¹t it?
When is Jesus coming back? Tomorrow, daddy??….
How naked, how lonely your small
Coffin looks in the lift-back car-boot;
No flowers fill up this bare, homemade hearse
As we make lonesome pilgrimage
from hospital to packed church:
Soujourners all of us.
Oh, Holly we’ve been through a lifetime together;
Death & birth in two traumatic weeks…
Now we bury your God-blessed body
Under the watchful gaze of protective,
Muscular mountains, knowing that our peace
Will surely come in that approaching Morning,
when resurrection-trumpet blasts out: Freedom!
Your other Father, The Father of Mercies, smiles
Happy that you have come Home.
I envy the way that He carries you
Like a lamb, on His shoulders.
I want to hear your girlish giggle,
I ache to see you leap & skip,
I long to see you created anew….
