Poem For My Son For Eugene Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

I am afraid to wake you,
afraid of what I cannot do
to comfort you, whose visions
are only half-sounds to me in the dark:
soft, sharp cries my own dream’s indecisions
cannot shape or accurately mark
out as your distress. I lie still, half-awake,
as late and dark comes your unrest
into my half-real world, and I ache
to forget how afraid and how distressed
I have been when dreaming I came
to your bed, unable to remember you by name.