To Him I Give Consolidation For My Awe-Struck Silences Poem by Luce Darwin

I have so few memories of you,
not because I have forgotten most,
but because they are all we had.
I can draw each memory
on paper like a still life,
I remember them so well.
I have spend so many days
in these memories,
naturally it is as if I had
lived an entire life with you.
But a life of longing,
because I know that these memories
are all I will ever have of you
and they are unchanging.
Though I may imagine
telling you things I had always
wanted to tell you,
the memories are frozen in place
and my words are lost
somewhere in space.
I always end up saying the same thing,
which is nothing at all.
When you spoke to me,
the very few times you did,
I never replied,
not because I didn't want to
(it was the only thing I wanted) ,
but because your presence
was of unspeakable eminence,
and overwhelmed my fragile being.
You filled space like nothing else could.
It was as if I swam to the bottom
of the ocean and tried to speak
to you from there.
How can one speak in
the presence of such beauty,
and such sorrow in eyes?