Revenant

[David Monks]

Revenant

I saw him tonight,
Standing at the turn of the stair.
I’ve sensed for some time that he was there,
Never visible to sight,
Until tonight.

He was waiting,
I felt, for me to speak.
Distracted by a floorboard’s creak,
When I looked back, he was gone.
But surely he’ll return.

No matter. I found my voice and spoke:
“I know you”, I said to empty air,
His presence perhaps still hovering there.
And my voice choked
In a dry throat.

The answering silence mocked my words,
As I stood where he had stood,
My footsteps noisy on polished wood.
And though my heart was beating harder
A chill was in my blood.

Oh yes, I know him.
I loved, and love him still, and well.
I never thought the knell
To summon me from France
Would be his bell.

It was unjust.
In years he was a decade less than I.
Nature’s sequence should have summoned me,
Not him, to die.
Yet I remain.

Hurtling onward
Unaccepting, unbelieving,
Through the screaming void
Of a changed reality,
Unaccepted, denied:
Silent and numb -
The human minds strains,
Wincing with pain,
To question the unanswerable,
Over and again.

Then the empty pomp and praise
Of those who thought they knew him
Better far than I;
Expounding and expanding my silence,
That wailed, railed, ranted and raved
Into wordless madness in my heart.

Some years have passed.
The emptiness within remains unfilled.
Fleeting memories catch me unaware,
Cheek bedewed by an unsettling tear:
This surely calls him back!

So, he’ll come again?
Perhaps. With tomorrow’s chill night air
I will linger on the stair,
And be prepared
To speak to him.

There is no fear.
Oh dear, departed one,
For you are welcome here
More than any other,
Though it were but in a dream,
Beloved, lost brother.

© David Monks

13 February 2009

[moonflower]

this is beautiful and captivated me all the way thro..a wonderful tribute!