Devotion Poem 7, the Unknowing

Devotion Poem Seven, The Unknowing (Written for Jim Eslinger, as I face complex surgery) The difficult coming days shall combine Into a memory of run hours. And the hours all combined into minutes Of final rushed movements: ours and So many nameless faces with their business And forgotten words of orders to be followed. Minutes that shall become so suddenly Crushed Into seconds of a message about to come From an inner, dark, impenetrable surgery Where I shall lie separate from you, my love, In a state of being repaired. And those seconds Will collapse into one instant, during which My surgeon will emerge, pulling down his mask, Looking either grave or vague, to utter A few words that will cling to remaining promise... Or condense our decades into a single word Of inexplicable horror among a whole Realm of endings that will not matter, for Time itself will have ended Taking with it our touches and glances, Our laughter and concerns, our immediate Exchanges of lover and beloved, gone, Given to eternity and God, Gwho will also Seem to stand in a veiled distance Outside ample comforting. I will have been Torn from you with my irreparable heart Gone weeping back to the cradling divine Where my eyes will hold you for all eternal moments. **********. **********. ********** ********** Thanks be to God. (C)sally Young eslinger 2020