Over and out

MICHAELMAS DAY 2001

Five am, a phone screaming through the darkness
A mothers voice frantic to her son,
I think your fathers dead
You'd better come
Blackness still on the sleepy seaside town
Heart pounding like thunder
Paramedics quietly trying to save a dying man
Too late
Not this time
Time, what does it mean?
Night turning to day, starlight gone and sweet birdsong
My mother now a widow
And I'm a fatherless son
Tears running down our faces
Hearts heavy
Heads hung in grief
Things that cannot now be said
Things that cannot now be heard
Gone all gone
We try to make sense of his passing
Cruelly taken away
Never to hear his voice
Or catch his sparkling eyes
Lighting up a room.