The Brothers I Carry
I see them still, in the hollow hours,
Familiar images etched against the fading sun,
Their laughter spilled like water over stones,
Now stilled, forever caught in time's cruel snare.
Once we stood, shoulder to shoulder,
Carrying a weight we dared not name.
We believed in the dawn,
Even as the night stretched its fingers,
Pulling them silently into its depths.
I speak their names into the wind,
A litany of sorrow, unanswered.
What claimed them—
The wars outside, or the ones within?
Their silence is thunder,
Rolling through an empty sky.
And I, the living, wear their absence,
A cloak heavy with grief.
Beneath the canopy of memory,
I walk among the breathing,
As though I, too, were unseen,
Searching for the meaning of their fall,
And the purpose of the pain left behind.
Yet, in the quiet, hope takes hold,
Through their loss, a truth unfolds.
To honor the brothers who couldn’t stay,
I hold the pain—live for them—remember and pray.
Copyright ©
Mickey Grubb
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