by Lois McQuinn
There is a place where silence screams….
where darkness rules and hearts are raw and broken…
a place of quietness ….
one would have hoped…
but hope in that death is not to be shared…
not while anger still smoulders…
and grief… calls for more wounds.
Death is the captor …
his laughter so mocking…
the only true foe…
it’s his voice we hear, the banshees grim call…
it’s his voice that shatters and invades us all.
The silence of pain speaks only of loss…
a “wordlessness” unnatural quiet breeds what can never truly be spoken… the sorrow of aloneness is now to be endured.
Aloneness born of another’s grief with pain that festers and bleeds in the ugliness of a false acceptance…
but no ….
truth…
of rage.
I couldn’t rescue…
I couldn’t save…
You molded that life and created that shame…
The voice of that death begins with a whisper…
It is in that smothering darkness of grief it births a condemning thought…
it accuses and tortures those caught as it wills …
It grows ever louder …
it grows ever bolder…
Paralyzing the soul that death …
that old horror…
that deep dark silence…
again now roars to speak…
its voice …
like the nails on a child’s board …
now screeching the length…
a shiver …
then still.
The spirit recoils, trying to hide from the accuser but it creates only darkness shadowing the mind in the mist of its own confusion and even greater pain.
The soul has no rest, the silence is deafening…
the silence is screaming…
its voice never ending…
condemning…
unclean.
Why weren’t you there, why didn’t you hear…
how can you believe the lies that were told…
how can you bear the words so corrupt…
how can you bear that lies of that mode….
that silence so filled with anger….
that silence so destructive.
Yet …
deep within …
another voice speaks…
a voice so clear …
remembrance now comes.
A voice always constant…
a voice always there…
a voice wrapped beneath the layers of grief.
Peel back the layers…
peel back the grief.
Now listen … with hope.
Let the voice speak…
let it come in again…
that voice so familiar …
the voice filled with love…
the voice from the long and not so distance past …
the voice of the future…
long to be heard…
the voice filled with truth and with rare precious jewels…
the voice of great comfort and ultimate care…
the voice of your Father.
Can you not hear it?
Just please… be still.
His laughter rang loud, his joy so contagious…
he speaks now from that place …
the place of the aged.
Remember the life that has gone on before…
Remember the joy that you once all had, the smiles … the laughter… the jokes and much more.
Remember the love that you all once shared …. it will bring back the quietness and the family as one.
Remember the place where the waters flowed… where the rocks were smooth and caves were cool.
Remember the feet on the ocean floor, the beauty of pillars… high rocks on a distant eastern shore.
Remember the comfort of a day by the sea, the cry of gulls and the resting of the boats …. waiting … just waiting in that deep, dark mud.
