Where the Healing Lies

Tick.
This is where the healing lies.
Tock.
In the moments. Each one survived,
each one reminding your heart
of all you have survived before.
Tick.
Each moment, bleeding loss.
Tock
And in the emptying, there is room
for a memory. A joy. Or perhaps
Tick
only a fragment. Never mind
that you are afraid to feel,
Tock,
you know you must.
It is the only way the wounds heal,
THrough the pain.
Tick.
And if time stands still, there is room
for love, for the perfect kiss
Tock,
Timeless and healing.
Making room for life without
Tick
or with, or whatever is on the other side
Death. Life. Love.
Tock.
This is where the healing lies.

About this poem.

I am thinking of the night my father died. I was on duty at the hospital, knowing, somehow knowing he would die that very night. Time stood still. Dripped out. Until he wasn’t with us any longer.

I am thinking of being in love. And the heaing that came in just being with the woman I love. The perfect kiss. Hands holding. And how in those few perfect moments, each moment is an eternity.

I am thinking of the times I have felt filled by my God. In Christian parlance, the Holy Spirit.
And again, an eternity in the shortest of moments.

Poetry is never about one thing.

Tom