No Warning
Dedicated to the Lion Air Crash families
a poem by George Hatcher
No warning.
You were snatched from us.
Mourning snatched the light from our lives.
Our souls full of prayer
yearn for the light of your laughter, your face.
We ache.
Senseless, stricken, weary, lost, disbelieving.
We are parents remembering
little hands,
first steps,
first words,
all the triumphs of your lives,
child to adult,
brought to a standstill.
We are wives,
remembering your arms to hold us,
your strength. Now we must be strong alone.
We are husbands remembering she who will be here no longer,
no face across the breakfast table,
just the empty echo of a memory of yesterday.
We are children,
saying goodbye to the bedrock of our parents,
who were always there,
there no more.
Still waiting at the gate,
dreaming you arrived safely,
but then we wake into the nightmare.
Your memory is all that remains.
We remember you.
We remember you with every breath we take,
with every flower we see waving in the wind,
kissed by dew or mourning light