Strength

Strength

I search the embers for the home I knew,
For the life I once had,

There deep in the rumble lies my silver-plated music box,
A gift cherished, now destroyed,
Over there, yes, near that fallen cross beam
Is the meat tray from my mother’s china,
Even in the wet ashes the roses are still fresh,
Too bad the platter is broken,

That’s the story of my life, I am alive
But my memories are gone,
Burned away in the still of a cold, dark night,

“Oh, what’s the use,” I say to myself, if only
I had been consumed in the fire with that antique sofa,
My favorite place to lay reading a cherished book,
Now gone, all gone… And I must start over?
I’m 83 years old, how am I supposed to start over?

Across the wreckage the sun is rising in the east
Just it always has,
That old dependable sun giving me another morning,
A new day,

As its first golden rays creep across the dark ash
They catch a reflection, a burst of brightness,
There in the depth of black soot I dig,

It’s a picture, an old photo of a man’s smiling face,
The man I once called my own, he had always
Stood by me, holding me, supporting me,

And with that frame held to my breast, I knew,
Together, I had the strength to go one.