Waiting For The Call (Poetry)

These nights I lie awake and think of friends
and family whose faces I’ll see no more
I count back over the years now gone before
and fret that I have no clue how the story ends

It’s so strange that I never thought life would come to this
that I’d find myself in a world of empty things
and I never dreamed how much hurt bereavement brings
with the ever-growing list of all those I miss

Am I doomed to be the name who is called home last?
will I have to watch every well-loved soul depart?
there’s not room for that load of grief in this wilting heart
as death exchanges the sadder future for the past

I want to go back thirty years or forty — maybe more
I would so-gladly do this journey in reverse
I peer ahead and worry that what’s on the way threatens worse
so best repeat the kinder things that came before

If only we had the power and at least some choice
over these great issues — life and inevitable death
it might make sense as we’d value more each breath
and savour sounds — the old music of every vanished human voice