Another Poem

I will be spending Easter weekend with my family (for the first time in almost ten years!), so I won't be around much on here. I wanted to leave you with another poem to ponder in my absence.

I read this poem last night and just knew I had to share it. I plan to make it a permanent part of the blog somehow because it is just so true. Here is "Reader,"* by Lisel Mueller from her collection Alive Together:

A husband. A wife. Three children. Last year they did not exist;
today the parents are middle-aged, one of the daughters grown. I
live with them in their summer house by the sea. I live with them,
but they can't see me sharing their walks on the beach, their dinner
preparations in the kitchen. I am in pain because I know what they
don't, that one of them has snipped the interlocking threads of their
lives and now there is no end to the slow unraveling. If I am a ghost
they look through, I am also a Greek chorus, hand clapped to
mouth in fear, knowing their best intentions will go wrong.
"Don't," I want to shout, but I am inaudible to them; beach towels
over their shoulders, wooden spoon in hand, they keep pulling at
the threads. When nothing is left they disappear. Closing the book I
feel abandoned. I have lost them, my dear friends. I want to write
them, wish them well, assure each one of my affection. If only they
would have let me say good-bye.

*Mueller wrote this poem specifically about Family Life, by Mary Elsie Robertson, which I have not read. I could certainly, however, relate to the sentiment of this poem!