ANOTHER WAVELENGTH by Daniel P. Stokes

Image / Elina Sazonova

ANOTHER WAVELENGTH 

As if last week had not thrown up

enough reminders of mortality -

our old dog giving up the ghost,

a friend dispatched at forty -

the radio on my way from Cork

sombrely intoned a tale

of sudden death to have us brood

upon its final platitude,

"You never know when."

I snapped it off in schooled distaste.

Yet pondered:

the terror of not being -

the boggling prospect

of absolute absence

from a world I made significant -

I can face

with equanimity.

But not the terror of not being

with you.          

         

But the winter sunshine

through the windscreen

pierced my pith, swelled

and suddenly exploded, gushing

me with warmth, assuring,

though I can't spend

all Time with you,

my friend, my confidante, 

my sweet-souled lover,

I can spend with you

all the time I've got.

© Daniel P. Stokes

Daniel P. Stokes

Daniel P. Stokes has published poetry widely in literary magazines in Ireland, Britain, the U.S.A., Canada, and Asia, and has won several poetry prizes.  He has written three stage plays which have been professionally produced in Dublin, London, and at the Edinburgh Festival.

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