I wipe the tears from your eyes

with a gentle edge and a smile

enlivened by hope, but there is

no wiping the sadness away

from the eyes that look with

loss, forlorn, back at me

in this time deluged with pain

and the throbbing silence of grief.

 

I wipe your tears away for it is

what I can do in being with you

embedded in this time that will pass

and never go, for one can never

recover the fulness after loss.

 

12/10/2020