The last goodbye.

Like a statue you were
but beautiful to me.
Eyes shut in your longest sleep;
hands folded like butterfly wings
in white.

I held your hand in mine.
Cool as the earth it was,
still as starlight.

Not grief but peace.
So glad I was for you
to know such stillness.
Freedom thrives in stillness.

I thanked your body for bearing me.
My flesh owed debts to yours.
Now in the grace of death
our hearts might also know their debts
one to another.

Sleep well my friend.
You are smaller in this box
than ever you were in memory.
No doubt it is better that way round.

Remember me in your
new found freedom.
I would have been more a son to you
had I found the gates much sooner
and known the lock was only
there for show.

(c) A McN

Eight years after I wrote it..
Strange how many years it has taken to get that particular poem out for view.