My loss of you will be a minor thing,
unnoticing, the seasons yet will flow
continue waltzing proud with beauty
through the myriad months they know.
And still will seeds long since been sown,
give birth to buds of billowing spring
for your death remains unknown
to the waking sun and the April rain.
Your quiet passing will go unobserved
by the boisterous birds and bees of May,
and so will wide-eyed infant squirrels
clamber around through our backyard tree.
June will not cease, nor will July,
blithely unaware you don't exist.
Ambered autumn bows to winter's bride
as if nothing significant is amiss.
Oh, there will perish with your passing
little of beauty that is not your own,
only the grace of common flowers,
only the lilt of morning's song.

-- Submitted by Brenda Bruner from Webb City, MO

What do I do when smothering black
Of night engulfs me ... coldly dark
So dark I tingle with sudden fear
No arms do I need but your arms
And you are not there!

What do I do with a life that tells
the end of the world in a darkened mist
But still must keep senselessly on
No love keeps my heart, but your love
And you ... you are gone!

-- Submitted by Charmian Blatter of Philo, CA

I'm standing in front of the silent grave,
looking at your name, carved in the stone.
A cold wind is swinging branches of pines
in the dark graveyard without any light.
Obscure clouds are overcastting the skies,
restraining their sadness over this sight.

 Beside me, there's a candle on the grave.
Its flame is floating over the gray stone,
making mystic shapes, filling me with fears,
flying as far as it can, hurrying on its way,
leaving me lost and afraid, alone in tears
like every shiny light you've taken away.

 The snowflakes are falling over the grave.
Your name is disappearing from the stone.
The fragile flame doesn't shine anymore.
The last light of my life has abandoned me,
following you up to the Heaven's shore
to swim with you in the Paradise sea.

-- Submitted by Bojan Prosenjak from Koprivnica, Croatia

Oh, the white of cotton sheets, the perfect edge, the perfect pleats
The dreary walls, the lonely halls, the soft excruciating calls

 I always gladly stood by you through every test they put you through
The chemicals, the painful nights, the nightmare dreams and stinging bites

 But when I saw you lying there so thin and weak, no voice, no hair
Your chest, your head, your thinning back were left in radiation black

 My eyes were not prepared to view this dying man, this other you
Who lived with me beneath blue sky, and now a man too weak to cry

 And oh, the white of cotton sheets, the tubes and needles, rhythmic beats
Metallic bed, metallic sound, a skimpy robe they tied around

My heart was not prepared to see you tugging chains to set you free
And oh, how much your eyes beseech a nurse's button out of reach

 Never had I seen on earth discomfort's torture on a berth
With sheets of alabaster white, with ends and corners tucked in tight
Your rose was but a thorny bush, a button there too weak to push

 And all your pain I took as mine, til morphine's regulation time
A bowl of soup you could not eat, disturbing words you could not speak

 A skeleton between the threads of sheets of white on metal beds
And every player played his part, but no one had prepared my heart

-- Submitted by Elizabeth Santos from Pottstown, PA

 Among the brambles of a shattered heart
Among the shambles of life torn apart
When love or friendship turns to hate
When words are spoken to berate
To pick up the pieces seems a chore
But must be done to grieve no more.

 Among the puzzles of the reasons why
Among the thistles that cause pain to cry
When moving on is the only goal
To open the door to another soul
Walking in limbo for a while
But lighting candles with a smile.

 Among the confusion of forest and trees
Among the conclusion of answers that please
When peace is restored from lackluster
When courage and spirit are easy to muster
To encounter the new and inclusive
To get rid of the old and abusive.

 Slowly the hurt will be completely erased
With a better relationship the ego replaced.

 -- Submitted by Floriana Hall from Akron, OH

 A teardrop fell upon the rose
That she held close to her breast.
In sympathy, the petals closed,
As she saw her love at rest.

The rose it seemed to feel her pain
As one by one her petals fell
And upon the stem of thorns,
Now fell the pouring rain.

Bending down, she picked the petals
And to herself, she drew them near;
She saw, in the rose, her broken heart
And on the petal, her fallen tear.

Between the pages of a book,
She placed the petals tenderly
And the rose, it shed a tear,
As if it cried in sympathy.

The words, on the pages read,
Forever, my love, remember me
And when you see a rose of red,
Remember, love, to remember me.

-- Submitted by Gloria Sarasin from Trinity, NC

 Why didn't they care for me.......?????
My inside they never did see,
My heart cries......my body is sore,
Paralyzing me to the innermost core,
The anger inside me can take no more.
The frustration, the misery and pain,
Driving me crazy...turning me insane,
Escaping away, do I have what it needs??
And finally I accept the things the way the are,
trying to live, trying to bear.....!!!

 -- Submitted by Pratiksha Sadh from India