SOLACE

In each human soul a heart is tenderly held

protecting it from tragedy’s left behind.

For the hand that once was held over the white tip

of a candle flame; tears of aloe heal.

There too flow the tears that weep for you.

Nothing heals the haunting midnight dream.

A silent clock sends a breeze through your open sash

waking you in rumpled sheets.  Leaving the comfort of an old bed,

pulling on your flannel robe, bare footed a familiar path takes you

across cold pavement towards thick green moss growing toward

what’s left of old perennials; snapdragons, dahlias and mums of gold

still languishing around an old outer vine covered cottage.

Here you found solace in words; until callused finger tips

gave way to arthritis slowing completed thoughts to answers of days

long past.  Somehow you felt the terrible responsibility of speaking

for those unable to speak from bloodshed, maimed and broken bodies;

liken to the cries of a weeping violin, therein was release.  Writing

spoke with dignity what you could only utter in vulgar words.

War had shattered your body.  Love had broken your heart.

When words dried up before your task was done, you’d pray

for death and go on. Your friends were boys when they’d left for war.

With courage and strength they’d become warrior’s fighting till frightful

deaths or endurance ran out.  Those who survived came home

with horror-ridden memories.  Some would succeed in burying

what lay heavy in their hearts; others tormented,

unable to reassemble normal life’s.  They’d stoked inner courage

to save another; failure the loss of a brother.  They were family;

we the strangers then.

They fought for those too weak to fight; they fought for us!

They dreamed of coming home, not knowing a taunting public

would meet them at gates full of ridicule for what we’d sent them to do.

For their afflictions we offered them wormwood and gall!

Some loved over there, a woman, a culture they’d never be able

to bring home.  We greeted their broken hearts with sticks and stones!

Some came home to wives or lovers; everyone’s innocence was gone.

The world was mad at everyone.

These times retreating to this garden offered peace; comfort

from the pains of yesterdays.  Daily walks accompanied the long lulls

sitting on a wood shat bench; bent over holding a tear soaked face

in your hands.  A heart over-wrought; wrenching out sobs you couldn’t

hold back for all the friends who’d not come back.  Red swollen eyes

watch large black bumblebees suck from flowers what had been

sucked from your own life.  Understanding your own pain you learned that

one life couldn’t speak for all; only offer peace.

Your heart is still haunted by the love ‘you’ lost over there, and those

since your return.  You reclaimed your life; but at what cost?  Here

as you lean against the cracked peeling red brick painted planks,

why hadn’t you taken time to repair what’s sheltered you; drying

your tears from time to time?

Standing alone under a indigo moon lit sky an occasional white

firefly flutters.  Free from prying eyes loosening your robe tie,

it drops crumpled in moss, exposing a worn out body that longs

for the innocence of youth once more.

Can you feel me under foot within the moss?  I’m your lover;

the one who never left your heart.  Through all the nightmares,

pain, regrets, incomplete thoughts and acts; I’ve always been there.

It’s always been my voice haunting you with remembrance of my touch;

and the scent of my lightly perfumed body.  In this moment we’re finally free.

Surely this is heaven in the Midnight Hour!

Rachealgrace Adams……a rewrite of 6/20/09…….on 10/1/10

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