Despite your sorrow, your grief,
your smile stayed sweet
giving warmth as you
maneuvered through the world,
a solitary, inner orphan
since that awful time a few years ago

The heavy pain you carried
that wouldn't let you be

The unanswered conundrums that
resisted parsing for one so young

Yet all along, there was the inherited voice
lying quietly within you

like a sleeping bird's
awaiting the dawn

desiring to sing again
in splendorous tones

a new day's joyful awakening 

February 3, 2015