How do you tell
one heart that’s in fervent
prayer, asking the gods
and all the saints sentient
and all the kith and kin
with good thoughts sent
and sympathetic hearts
that at this darkest moment,
there’s the shining painful truth
that after all the best efforts spent,
the little candle’s burned out and
there’s nothing more that’s meant
to hope for?

They say love doesn’t give up,
that ‘love is patient, love is kind’
and life is love and love is life
but when the time has come
that life depends on ticks and beeps
and flashing tiny red bulbs and screen
monitors, does love live in them –
lifeless machines energized
by amperes and microvolts?  

Fluctuations rule the end of days
when flames of blood lines rise up
and ashes of signed paper go down.
When graphs fluctuate no more,
the final long flat line beeps us farewell.
As grieving tears flood the valleys
of our faces, there’s no recourse
nor dikes to stop the flow. And we
who survive could just call hope
that pains cease and endless worries
end. The distance widens. Hoping
for hope, hoping against hope.
Perhaps a reunion somehow,
somewhere in time . . .