I Cannot Fathom

My friend, I cannot fathom loss so deep as that of yours;
So sad I was to hear of it, and cancer's double doors;
I only know – just yesterday I came across my words –
How threat of it unnerved me more than other loss-filled words.

I know when it swept over me, like creature trapped I felt;
No action could avert the loss – ease panic as I knelt;
The restlessness within my life – eyes casting right and left,
In desperation to avert my loss, and be bereft.

To lose one's wife, one's life-long friend – for me I had reprieve
Though it postponed what comes for all, that loss I did not grieve –
Two years it's been for you, so now that pain perhaps has eased,
But nothing can fill up the gap of such a loss received.

When father died, my colleague, friend, from cancer of my kind,
How raw it felt, Paul's sting of death, and how it numbed my mind;
Just like a tree wrenched by its roots, it left a gaping hole
Which did not fill – grassed over now – a dip within my soul.

When David wrote of pastures green where God took him to rest,
That is the scene that fills my mind – deep loss was there addressed –
The contours of that rolling land, now pocked from other times –
How gracious God has been to me in quieting my mind.

The last time I encountered her, she'd burst into your place
Fresh from a woman's lake-retreat – prayed evil from one case;
So thrilled she was to be alive and walking with the Lord,
And able to the dark push back with Christ in prayer-filled word

Like lamp in story Jesus told, not just a winsome shade,
But from within there burst a light which Spirit's presence made;
I'm glad that scene is mine to have of her through coming years,
Such Kodak-moments in our lives move us beyond our tears.

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