I lost a son,
she said more than once
and that silenced me.
How can you offer solace
to such a thing?
Her daughter like mine
is the light of her life,
and yet I saw the girl's face
when Joshua is mentioned.
And after a day
she casually said
that Joshua was born dead,
at seven months,
and suddenly I knew
the shadow in that girl's eyes.
It is not that her mother
should not mourn her lost child---
but he never shared her life
outside her womb,
yet what child can compete
with the shadow
of a martyr,
and what child can share
her mother
with a child that never was?
Elizabeth is sunlight
on a Carolina morning,
but Joshua was never real for her---
and it seems wrong
to make her mourn
a life she never felt,
as more than an occasion of grief
to the mother she loves so well...
she said more than once
and that silenced me.
How can you offer solace
to such a thing?
Her daughter like mine
is the light of her life,
and yet I saw the girl's face
when Joshua is mentioned.
And after a day
she casually said
that Joshua was born dead,
at seven months,
and suddenly I knew
the shadow in that girl's eyes.
It is not that her mother
should not mourn her lost child---
but he never shared her life
outside her womb,
yet what child can compete
with the shadow
of a martyr,
and what child can share
her mother
with a child that never was?
Elizabeth is sunlight
on a Carolina morning,
but Joshua was never real for her---
and it seems wrong
to make her mourn
a life she never felt,
as more than an occasion of grief
to the mother she loves so well...




