Following the Sage

You sat in your chair, and read your book,

As often I’ve seen you do,

While each now and then I’d peek a look,

A glance filled with love for you.

The hour was late, but you didn’t stir,

I said I’d be off to bed,

I noticed your look was fixed on your book

So it went right over your head.

I lay awake for an hour or two,

And thought that you might come up,

We’d both had coffee before I came,

I’d made you a second cup,

You may have fallen asleep down there

All cuddled up in your chair,

I cleared my head, and got out of bed,

Thinking to call you there.

I ventured into a darkened lounge

And found that the power had failed,

While lighting flashed through the open blinds,

And thunder above assailed.

But still you sat in your cozy nook

And stared straight down at the page,

Clinging on to your open book

By an old, forgotten sage.

I called you once, and I called you twice

But you didn’t move or stir,

I tried to shake you awake, but you

Were cold in the cool night air.

Your face was pale in the flashing light

Of the lightning bursts outside,

And then the terrible truth came out,

You’d sat in your chair, and died.

I tried so hard to revive you, but

You didn’t allay my fears,

Your eyes were open, but dull and black,

While my own eyes filled with tears.

I laid your open book on the hearth

And tried to preserve the page,

The final one you were looking at

As you left this mortal stage.

And often now I stare at that book

At the final words you read,

As death crept up and it claimed you then

As those words rang in your head:

‘You must let go and come walk with me

To the green fields of the park,

Just take my hand and then leave with me,

Don’t be afraid of the dark.’

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[emmajoy]

As ever always, you've created a tome with yet another poem! This has turned to a slip slide in the night where and when mystery plays a hand, complete with the finest metre, light and dark gravelled with colour, and an ending that makes one throw up hands at the black cloud left hanging in quote.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Your writing always takes me away. You are a master at weaving atmosphere. It creeps in slowly through the walls and the floor. This is a great tapestry of love and warmth and eerie circumstance that is fringed with death and sorrow. Well penned.