Lost but Held

 

Her grief was too much to contain

too unbearable to accept

She dropped the brown envelope to the floor

held fast to the arm of a chair

What she had most dreaded

had come to pass in a few typed words

Loss, regret, courage - Killed in Action

Their Majesty´s condolences

A bomber in the night sky over Kiel

her son who had seldom known fear

A mother imagined the scene 

wreckage strewn about a field

all that remained of an only son

She went up to his bedroom

left as always in something of a mess

She closed the window and the door

and for years never entered once more

Years passed and she too left this world

others came to find a room locked

opened to discover it filled with dust

and completely untouched

A tomb of private memory and grief

sealed for a time by a broken heart

who could not accept to be apart

A grieving mother 

who could love no other