(Astonishingly, I composed this a week before my mother died. She had a look of being ready to go somewhere and was exhausted by the preparations for the journey).
So you’ve left me then,
as I knew you would, at night
whilst I was sleeping.
Of course I tried to stay awake,
to wave you off, squeeze your hand,
tell you it would be alright to go.
But I let you down, for the first time
and now it’s too late to make amends.
So,
with just a morbid party to arrange,
that I for one surely do not need,
and they, all thinking that they’ve come
to say goodbye.
But I know you’ve already gone,
even though I missed the final kiss,
and a whispered last farewell.
© Graham Sherwood 10/2009
