Pauline. (Completed Poem).

Grief lasts for a lifetime.

After fifty two years I am still grieving for you.

When I saw your self portrait made from stained glass
I was suddenly back in your studio.

I was a kid sprawled like a rug on the wooden floor
Making weird marks on paper.

Your paper.
                    Your charcoal.
                                             Your coloured pens.

You watched amused as I drew lines and circles,
Not thinking at all what I was doing,
My hand out-speeding my grid locked brain.

The moment I started to think about what I was doing
You snatched the sketch book away from me
And slipped it into a folder.

I protested, but then I was too wilful to understand
That art, like love, can only ever be true
When it seems to be happening by chance.

                               *

The last time we met was in the hospital.
The white sheets covered you like a shroud
That you snuggled deep into to outwit the pain.

"Please don`t give up art", you urgently whispered.
"But how? - But how?" I cried into the dark.
"Just don`t give up.- Promise me! - Promise me Trevor."

And for forty years after I could not paint or write,
But now, most days, I put my pen to paper.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 5th. - 7th. - 10th. 2018.

October 22nd. - 30th. 2021.

For a long time I could not properly complete this poem because I felt I had failed to keep my promise.