Watching the Light go out


Brightly colored
fire driven lantern
rises steadily, purposefully,
growing smaller
carries it’s brightness
into a vast mellow sunset
to remember a life
whose light
flickered in years of confusion
and then went out.

I watch
remembering lost words,
lost smiles, lost cognition,
suffering,
that ever so gradually stole his light
his wit, gregariousness
his very person.

I will the light not to disappear
my eyes track it
my heart  tugged along
until it becomes a dot
and disappears into the vastness of eternity.

I say, goodbye,
call my heart back
to the ground under my feet
to the lights and voices around me,
to life without the light that went out.