Colored glass

Sometimes when I'm by myself quietly doing dishes or laundry or some other mindless task, my mind wanders to other concerns, normal daily silly things like "what's for dinner" Or "what do I need to get from the store."  And then silently, like a glint of sun that blinds momentarily, it hits me all over again:she's gone.  Really really gone. Its almost a tangible thought, as though I could take the thought and roll it between my fingers and it would be a hard shiny mishapen colored glass with swirls in it like a marble.  I could take the thought and hold it up to the light but then I'd have to look into the glass thought and see the swirls would be like movie images winding and whispy and sad.  I could try to drop the thought but the sad swirling images captivate, hold me hostage so that I cannot let go. I don't want to let it go.  I do not want to let her go.  There's a villanelle poem about old men not going quietly into the night.  I don't want to let her go quietly.  I cannot let her go quietly.  I'd have given my very parts that grew her to have kept her.  I'd have gone willingly sterile if it meant that I could have watched her grow and have her own babies. 

But truly, her soul did leave quietly, like a breeze on a beach, she was there and then in the stillness she was gone.  So softly she stepped into our lives but what footprints she has left behind.  Her soul may have slipped quietly away but her spirit fights violently within me so that I want her footprint to be lasting in the sands of time.  If you could count every piece of colored glass glinting in the sunset on the beaches you could count the number of times I will have thought of that tangible glass thought that she is gone forever.  Until my own soul has to decide to go quietly or not into that dark night or fight against the sunset I am held hostage by its sadness and the glinting colors in the sands of time.  She may be gone forever physically but there will always be colored glass upon the beach.