God Is A Ghost On Wrens' Nest Road

Stanzas spill from my eyes and trail the moon for the loves ones whose life has ebbed away.

Love, let me lend you my ancestral wing

across the distance which keeps us apart

to bestow such comfort as it may bring

for the sorrows that inundate your heart.

 

Stanzas spill from my eyes and trail the moon

for the loved ones whose life has ebbed away,

whose love-light flickered and faded too soon

in the mid of night where they both once lay.

 

I cannot pretend to perceive your pain,

what it must be like to lose wife and child;

but I know the tears that patter like rain

whose ocean runs deep when once beguiled.

 

Sadness is a wall between life and death

in the arch of your back, along your spine;

and the sigh and silence between each breath

is a pulse of promise for all divine.

 

Love, my heart aches as any heart would do.

The blood between us is no longer free.

Whatever you suffer, I suffer too;

and my tears are your tears inside of me.

 

Though I have lost sight of your kindred face,

I feel the beat of your beat in my heart.

I wish for you solace, mercy, and grace

and all the comfort my words can impart.

 

The homestead is hollow, silent and still,

as the moon hovers in her graceful turn,

shining brightly on backs of house and hill

in honor of those who will not return.

 

My thoughts embark on a current of tears.

On a river of sleep, I gaze the shore

where Tracey and Jake give praise to the years

and to the memories you built before.

 

Your love has brightened their pathway to peace

and slippered their souls in heaven’s haiku

and dressed them in glimmers of sweet release

like sunlight distils the evening dew.

 

The wings of morning spin circles of light.

Memories of loved ones dwell in the air.

The loss you’ve suffered I cannot recite,

and it is greater than one soul must bear.

 

My thoughts are gliding through evergreen bones,

encircling sky with wings of the heart,

bursting through vineyards and layers of stones

across the distance which keeps us apart.

Author's Note

A failure in an electrical socket is blamed for an overnight house fire that took the lives of 46-year-old Tracey Johnson and her 11-year-old son, Jacob Layne, along with two pet dogs. The fire broke out just after 12:30 a.m. on December 21, 2010, at 1801 Wrens Nest Road in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

53-year-old Kenneth Layne was seriously injured when he escaped by jumping from a second-story window and has suffered burns to his throat and lungs. Firefighters found him ducking for cover by his truck that was parked on the street.

Kenneth had back surgery on Wednesday, December 22,2010, at VCU Medical Center due to injuries sustained when jumping from the window. He is heavily medicated and still unaware that his wife and son are gone.

Kenneth is my uncle. Please keep him in your prayers.

Reviews

[love, lorey]

Love, my heart aches as any heart would do.
The blood between us is no longer free.
Whatever you suffer, I suffer too;
and my tears are your tears inside of me.

*Swoon*

This entire piece is breathtaking. Devastatingly so. It isn't often here, I find myself moved so. I am so very, very sorry for your family and their crushing loss. They are sincerely, in my prayers.

L

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you for reading, for reviewing and for your thoughtful prayers. Your thoughts really warm my heart.

[Claire Lorraine]

Oh I am so sorry for the sorrow and pain your Uncle and family has endured!
These tragedies carve out a hole within our hearts, changing us, hopefully for the better, yet they do not leave us without deep scars. My heart truly goes out to you and your Uncle.

I loved this poem.
Your voice is so clear and powerful. Your heart and pain so visible.
Thank you for sharing this beauty and sorrow with us. It is glorious.

I must say these were my favorite stanzas:


"Sadness is a wall between life and death

in the arch of your back, along your spine;

and the sigh and silence between each breath

is a pulse of promise for all divine."

The way you combined the poetic picture of a line between life and death and his physical injuries was very well done!
And the line of the "sigh of promise" caused me to really sigh.


"Love, my heart aches as any heart would do.

The blood between us is no longer free.

Whatever you suffer, I suffer too;

and my tears are your tears inside of me."


The heartbroken compassion is relentlessly moving, demanding that the soul look and see, feel and know the pain, the loss, the anguish that is felt. Masterful, truly, masterful!


"The wings of morning spin circles of light.

Memories of loved ones dwell in the air.

The loss you’ve suffered I cannot recite,

and it is greater than one soul must bear."


You spoke it perfectly. There is nothing I could say to add to this. It is divine in and of itself.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you, Claire. It's tragic how lives can be touched in such earth-shattering ways.

[Girl Friday (Sarah W.)]

Such a heartbreaking story...and you have written this with so much emotion that it truly took me by surprise. I feel haunted... There is little else to say, but best wishes and good writing.

[Gleb Zavlanov]

One of the most gorgeous poems I ever read. Thank you for sharing this wonderful, yet heartrending story. I almost cried reading this piece and goosebumps kept slithering up my skin as I read this. Spectacular job!

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Well, that's high praise indeed! Thank you so very, very much. Sorrow is always a salient inspiration.

[Gleb Zavlanov]

Indeed it is.

[Tomás Ó C..]

Great tribute, tragic story. I love the rhyme and the form of the poem...

[Augustus]

I am speechless. I cannot review this poem in my usual style. I wish the tragedy that inspired this poem had never happened. One sublime poem less is a small price to pay for two human lives and two canine ones...

But how often does it happen that masterpieces are created in the deepest mires of sorrow. How true Shelley's words are!
"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought"

And here, Linda, you have created a masterpiece whether you wanted to or not.
"ancestral wing", "evergreen bones", "sadness is a wall between life and death"... so many of these...so many of these glorious expressions! Enough said....

God bless you Linda! And God bless them all!

[emmajoy]

Read this twice, not sure how to review, the poem's peculiarly beautiful and yet the core of it is wretchedly tragic, absolutely heartbreaking. You write with extraordinary sensitivity, yet, goodness knows how, your words resound then wrap around my thoughts, 'Whatever you suffer, I suffer too; ~ and my tears are your tears inside of me.' ... then again, that last stanza is as near to anyone describing grief,

'My thoughts are gliding through evergreen bones,
encircling sky with wings of the heart,
bursting through vineyards and layers of stones
across the distance which keeps us apart.'

Belated prayers and hugs.

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

your author's note drives the beauty of the painful sliver deep into soul pocket~ entrancing~encompassing~ each stanza a bead on the necklet of the cycles of life and tragedy~

[Rory CJ Frankson]

Such a tragidy to mar the season of family treasured with this loss of kin... Condolences called for and compassion for this happenstance, so hard to accept for all that know this family and those that now are not amongst the community.

We have lost family to fire and the living with that pain evident when these trials of life visit us, and steal away our loved ones. Knowing your Uncle will suffer so... of course, I will say prayers over this sad news. That today dampens my spirit to learn of such happening, so close to Christmas...
When all should be and, isn't.