My Love Shall Live

        

Editorial Note: I wrote this poem after 

an all-day ministry experience as a hospital 

chaplain to a family who was losing a child 

to a farming accident. The mother and father 

were estranged and the older, adult siblings 

were totally siding with Mom. Thus, the father 

was having an especially dark day. He had 

pinned his hopes on that child to bring the 

family back together. The mother and some 

of the siblings were in total denial when the 

child died.

This event also brought to mind the time a 
few years previous when a special professor 
of mine lost his wife and a son in a firey car 
crash. I showed him a draft of this poem. 
His response was, "It's all there."

        My Love Shall Live!

           Jack L. Mace, © 1989

“He’s not dead!?  It cannot be!

                The doctor surely lies.

He’s asleep!  He’ll wake again

                At breaking of the dawn.

He will rise to laugh; to love.

                So truly all can see,

My faith robs death its dark rule.

                Yes, I shall take him home.

“Truly, it’s impossible,

                that death should lay him low.

He is keeper of my dreams ...

                My love  ...  my life  ... my soul.

Love is stronger e'en than death.

                True love shall conquer all.

Do not talk to me of death.

                I simply will not hear.

My faith is strong, sufficient.

                I know that he will rise.

There is no love strong as mine.

                My love, it will prevail.

God will answer all my prayers

                And make him whole again.

Death shall not take whom I love.

                To him, harm shall not come.

“Look my friend!  Look here and see!

                I hold his body, warm.

Gently kissing loving lips,

                His sweet, warm breath I feel.

Nothing’s changed, as you can see.

                How can you say he’s gone?

Out the door to work or play

                As he has always done?”

So, in ominous abyss

                She searches height and breadth

Height and breadth of darkness cold,

                to find her love, now gone.

Love, now gone, hath borne away

                the better part of her -

Nay, ‘twas not the better part -

                Indeed, most all of her.

Yet doth she dare to fancy

                that from dread darkness cold,

She’ll bear forth her love, now gone,

                Her anguish drive away.

“He’s not dead, but gone aside,

                And he’ll return once more.

When he does, my tears he’ll dry

                and make me whole once more.

“Some day sure, this yet shall pass.

                I’ll find my true love home.

He’ll return in loving bliss

                To hold me evermore.

Evermore, then shall we rise

                To dance away the dark.

Dancing  ...  dancing  ...  gone the clouds,

                Once more sweet love we’ll share.”

Daily searching  -  bright or cloud -

                And yet throughout her night,

In loneliness she searches

                Her bed for warmth and love.

Finding naught but emptiness

                She feels her breath withdrawn.

Searching ever  -  pain so deep,

                Increasing ten-fold more.

“Some day sure, this yet shall pass.

                I’ll find my true love home.”

Finding naught, her hope doth wane.

                ...  Her tears begin to know,

Never shall she find her love,

                but cold within the grave.

So in time, quoth she one day,

                “He’s  ...  gone  ...  for evermore.

“Lies cold my dear beloved,

                Dead cold within the grave.

Away, my heart is wrenched -

                My heart and yes, my breath.

My love  ...  life  ...  my heart and soul

                Lies cold within his grave.

I shall hold him nevermore,

                His heart  ...  in time  ...  with mine.

“Harshly am I punished!  Why,

                And what the wrong I’ve done!?

Forever gone is my love.

                I’ll hold him nevermore.

My God  ...  My God  ...  why, my God!?

                You’ve taken him from me.

We shared life  ...  love  ...  and breath.

                Could he deserve to die?

“A chasm, mighty  -  fearsome  -

                Presides where once he lived,

I perceive no distant shore  -

                Just broad and deep despair.

I’m bereft on stormy sea.

                Without my love and stay,

Dare I stretch forth to wander

                That wilderness so drear?

“That chasm, mighty  -  fearsome -

                Where once my true love dwelt,

Robs me now of hope and dream.

                His love I cannot feel.

Fill it up again with love?

                O God! It can’t be done!

Such a deep and dread abyss

                can nevermore be filled.

“Would you not be satisfied

                To take my life instead?

Take thou my life, Lord, today,

                And give it to my love.

I’ve lived my life to fullness.

                Of joy I’ve had my fill.

In eternal rest lay me.

                Rekindle life in him.”

Companions come, then they go.

                To comfort loss they try.

Shall they feel dread loss she knows,

                Most all of her now gone?

Scarcely yet shall they perceive

                Foreboding pain within  -

Foreboding pain   -   chasm broad  -

                Where once her true love dwelt?

Scarcely aught is left to her,

                And why she cannot know.

Thus quoth she, “’Tis vain, my friend,

                That you presume to grasp

My deep pains to lose my love,

                My better part of life  -

Life I spent with my love, true  -

                My dreams and all my plans.

“Can you grasp my cursings bold,

                To drive God ’way from me?

Shall you know forsaken-ness,

                And fear encounter sweet?

Shall you know forsaken-ness,

                No hope of being found?

Ever fear I loneliness

                Where fear I’ve never known.

“You shall not perceive my pain,

                Nor feel my empty arms.

And Damn you!  How dare you try

                To show me skies of blue!?

Can you perceive the darkness

                of bright and sunlit sky  -

Fathom emptiness within?

                Nor shall you want to try!

“Dare you not to say to me,

                ‘with time, you’ll better feel.’

Time I have  -  and emptiness.

                My love hath gone away.

Time  ...  and emptiness  ...  and pain,

                These three my days now rule.

Empty fall your platitudes.

                It’s not all right, you know!

“Scarce know you the pain I feel.

                You’ve never held true love

One last time for evermore,

                And not to hold again.

You’ve not known the still, cold form

                that tore your heart away;

Nor felt wrenched from your lungs

                Your life restoring breath.

“Yet, do I dare to fancy,

                To seek and yet to find,

In that ominous abyss

                My true love, gone away.

You shan’t know the pain I feel

                Come feel my empty arms.

Feel the chasm deep within.

                Walk in if you can bear.

“Burdened shame, and guilt, and doubt,

                And emptiness I feel.

Often in my deepest fear,

                Too long, too deep I’ve searched.

Reaching o’er abyss’s brink,

                I’ve nearly fallen in.

How I’ve kept my grip on life,

                I surely do not know.

“Do you know the reaching out,

                The primal scream for aid?

Have you felt that chasm deep

                Where once your true love dwelt?

Or perchance in tears you’ve drowned

                To wake as living dead.

Can you help me bear my pain?

                It’s not all right, you know.

                jlm