You came home to die

and it was a decision that I

applauded, that I understood

and I told you so and you smiled

whilst deep into the coma,

the final rage of sleep,

the dawn yet unseen,

you smiled and a hundred miles away

the Earth stood motionless.

 

A quick release, less than a year

but oh my friend, the days since then

have stuttered on, have been less kind

because my picture of you

has been eroded by time, my faltering

mind as quiet as your voice

when I think back to that night

as you dreamed in sleep

and were at peace again.

 

I had no clock to stop,

I wouldn’t have let it anyway,

for time in the end cruises on

whether we wish it to or not,

whether we understand our loss

and as your wife gently told me

down the phone that you had finally gone

I wept for all our mutual childhoods

swallowed and ravaged by Time,

now broken apart, clocks can never

be held back.

 

Dedicated to the memory of Terry Winchester.

Ian D. Hall 2016