Shadows On The Wall Poem by Joseph Camphouse

When I left that cold day most was right with the world.
The drama most families have hidden was still furled.
When I came back I parked and stepped off a cliff, to fall.
All that was left of my life, my love, was shadows on a wall.

Without a hand to hold I toured what had been mine, still warm.
It was there for all to tell, the smell, the cold the loss the harm.
So much at once, irony surrounding me, oozing with charm.
All left my body I felt not. No rules applied gravity suspended.

Day after day I returned praying it was all the stuff of nightmare.
But the story was there for all painted by brushstrokes large and small.
A picture there, the sun mirror, a clock a chair.
All stood silent, staring from the shadows on the wall.

Kermit, my friend did not fall, sat strong to become a shadow on the wall.
The pain of loss, the angershame, the could haves and should haves that
Fall from your lips as fast as rain.
The comforting of friends just too much to bare, bottom line I should have been there.

From that day to this and on to my last I will bear that scar carved deep in my chest.
I think of you all there no comfort to each. Fright and panic is all that was within reach.
Did you cry out to God with your last thought. He will be here he will come he will save us I know.
I would trade all I own, then and now. To have been able to be there to protect you somehow.

Life keeps moving, what choice do we have. I’ll carry you forever not as burden, or salve.
I know you forgive me, and let me not cry. A tortured soul to not be I try.
As time works it’s magic as it silently calls.
All of us, in the end to be shadows on the wall.

(1.22.06)