One Picture At a Time

A toddlers Crayola masterpiece marks the box Where the story of our days now tarry Passages tilting the axis of a bittersweet equinox As photographs eclipse yesterday and today unvaried The plans we made for a life After years of work and worry Useless installments when your partner dies The crumbling of everything you once held firmly Riveted, uprooted with every slide Scenes of "our time" bring you back to life I step from earth, you from the sun, for yet another goodbye And the dam finally collapses behind brave hazel eyes But not the brokenness your death left behind Still, though no more than ashes it resides Like faded photographs etched in the mind Fanning the embers... one picture at a time Rage rises, for you left me alone Without refuge for all life's trials And our sons fatherless before they were grown Every step feeling more like a mile I've grieved so long And tried to move on Like river water never looking back But it's motion sings the the words to our song Leaving me afraid I'll never belong Or live out the plan we devised For all my days my efforts give way Blundering, burdened and blind How does one truly recover When the mate of their soul is no more Or pass from one realm to yet another When the walls of your heart no longer have a door? Frustration builds like Lego towers toppling to the floor under the weight of the world Is it grief or something disguised by cowards When a heart gets stuck from the pain that it's learned? This ode to a man Who in covenant took my hand The marriage equator engraved a permanent mark... For his death left a total eclipse of my heart Crazy as a loon But my God... how I loved you My eyes fixed upon our favored moon And I wonder... Do you miss me too? Anniversaries used to be a joyous accomplishment Marking years of selfless love made Now it serves only an acknowledgement Of a life interrupted by a cruel twist of fate Of ill trusted hopes And a future unmade For us left behind to cope With memories and photographs fading away On this the 2nd anniversary... Of your passing away In memory of my husband of 25 years Charley Romani (My Beloved)