“i did not want to trouble her”
i would not trouble her
with present reality
the look behind her eyes, knowing
that she did not know,
worrying what she’d once again forgotten
that should always have been rememberedi’d said good-bye a month ago,
then left her undisturbed–
living cherished, not alone
in the simple “now”i could not trouble her,
insert myself…let her long-feared flaws and failures
drift by unnoticed
to the end of the beginning
of eternal life
together once again with her mother
and her beloved father
those she never, through it all, forgot
Copyright © 2017-07-26, by Elizabeth W. Bennefeld.
if I do not remember
if I cannot remember you…
my love, let me golet me not remember either
all the rest
or, fearful, fret
at what I’ve lost
that leaves me with such
emptinesslosing you
losing the clear, sweet memories of you
I’ve lost everythinglet go the empty shell
“if I do not remember”. Copyright © 2017-07-26, by Elizabeth W. Bennefeld.
These poems, although I posted the second one today on my poetry blog, belong together. Remembering is a way, I think, to let go of grief by understanding the loss. In this case, the loss of my parents, this last winter.
