Annabelle Poem by Bryan Sefton

'No! No! She screams, 'what have you done? '
I watch it fall and disappear
Tumbling, flailing over the weir
Into the angry creaming foam

'But there are others just as fine
I wipe her tear stained face
Reassuring it would be replaced
That better would prove anodyne

I cursed the careless clumsy slip
That sent it tumbling to its end
Her lifelong true, unfailing friend
That I'd held in precarious grip

'No! No! No! I want Annabelle
Her blue eyes bared her tortured soul
She spoke across the great big hole
That opened wide when Annabelle fell

'She was my only truest friend
She slept with me all through the night
I told her things and they'd come right
And now she'll never come again! '

I too had only recently
Lost a lifelong glorious chum
Who'd been my confidant and fun
No balm could take that hurt from me

We used to talk long into night
And bare our mutual troubled soul
Not thinking it ephemeral
So transitory to our sight

Here we were in our dolour
Looking at the raging water
Grandfather and Granddaughter
United in our grieving source

Spectators gathered round perturbed
To ascertain what in the world
Could have befallen man and girl
So huddled, weeping, on the kerb