Heather

Death is an ocean too deep to perceive

The pain and the light of a sudden plunge.

We bathe and swim, to float through life

While others jump between the tides.

To sink or swim as parental arms reach out

Carrying us back to brighter shore or dark

Embracing our love and fate from either side.

But hopes of a life are gone

Torrented away in a torrent of despair.

Cold, chilled flotsam drifts on a sea of night

Our words plunge, unspoken,

Under a midnight air,

Forever out of sight.

A canvas for your picture is half unbrushed.

Great daubs of beauty and purpose and colour lie crusted and cold

A half-painted life, a rainbow left untold.

Finished mid-stroke, the job half done,

Or completed, so you thought, 

As you swam towards that sun.

Modified, Waimate March 30 2023