Night-Time Poem by R. L. Allen

Night-time is the hardest.
There is time to think:
time to reflect;
time to remember
the sound of his voice
or the exact shade of blue
in his eyes which were
helped by a pair of
thick-rimmed, retro glasses.

Here, in the dancing shadows
of darkness, my mind is not
busying itself.
So I miss him;
I long for him;
I scream his name
silently in my head
so as not to wake my
mother; my brother; my grandmother
who also mourn his passing.

Everything has happened so fast
That this does not feel real,
because each morning
I wake up with a weight
upon my bones
shouting at me,
telling my
that
I don’t have a father anymore.

Every time I wake now,
Whether in the morning
at the birth of the
day or in the middle of
the night,
I will know that there is
one more father in Heaven
and one less father on Earth.

But, I try to be positive.
He wouldn’t want
me to be sad.

Me – his daughter,
child of my mother:
the love of his life;
grand-daughter to his
parents; his parents-in-law…

And I have to be strong,
because, whilst he did not
suffer any pain,
I know that my family
feel more pain now than
ever.

They need me, and
I need them.

For this reason I shall
smile when I see his
photograph, instead of cry.
Tears aren’t worth very much,
but a smile can make someone’s day.

And my dad smiled a lot.
I think it was a kind of hobby.

So I’ll smile in memory of him,
not forgetting
how i feel his arms
holding my heart tightly.

Nothing could make me
forget
this.




May 12th 2010.
For Dad.