Charisma Salon

She is folded over herself on the ground

and the cardinal is sitting on her shoulder.
Not flying. Not leaving.

Just — there, on the shoulder,

the way something stays

when it has decided to stay.
The red rose is lying at her feet.

She did not put it down carefully.

It is just there the way things end up

when you have run out of hands for anything.
I know that posture.

The cardinal on the shoulder.
The voice is the one I keep coming back to —

not the large things you said,

not the speeches or the important conversations,

just the ordinary sound of you talking about nothing.
The way your voice went when you were tired.

The way it went when something was funny to you.

The specific frequency of it in a room

that I will not hear again in any room.
The cardinal stays on her shoulder.

The rose is still at her feet.

She is still folded into the ground.

The voice is still not here.
— Missing You Always

You were my own heart, walking and breathing outside of my chest for a while.

A daughter is a piece of her mother's heart that can never be replaced.

You taught me that even the shortest lives can leave the biggest impact.

The dock goes out toward the light
and there is no one at the end of it.
Four cardinals on the posts —
each one still,
each one facing the same direction,
the way things face what they cannot change.
The planks go out into the water and the mist.
The far end disappears before it arrives.
I know that feeling.
I have been walking that dock for years.
You should still be here.
That is the whole sentence.
Not complicated. Not a feeling I can explain.
Just that — the plain fact of it,
sitting on every post like a bird
that will not move no matter how much time passes.
The light is coming from somewhere in the mist ahead.
I cannot tell if it is morning or evening.
It doesn't matter what time it is
when the missing is the same at every hour.
One cardinal lifts from its post and crosses overhead.
The others stay.
The dock keeps going into the grey.
The light in the mist doesn't get any closer.
— Missing You Always

Any one that has lost a child knows the meaning to grief very well. It’s a feeling; there are no words to explain it. #grievingmomsforever #grief #missingmysons