We look for the pretext, the hidden connection
a word to encourage, a sign someone cares–
it’s not in their words that we garner the meaning
but inside the knowledge that someone is there.
Caught up in this void is the echo of voices,
the faces once clear disappear from display;
we hide them away in a cache deep inside us
not willing to share lest we give them away.
The winter months beg to be given our secrets
but who’s really listening to what we might say?
In the silence and emptiness, in hollow of loneliness
lie the chapters of stories and things we’ve outgrown,
yet we cannot forget all the places we’ve come from
the communion of friendship, the people we’ve known.
We’re born to this world, become one among many—
it seems when we leave, that we all go alone.
© Ginny Brannan 2024
Photo credit: C. Parant at Appetite for Photos. Used with expressed written permission.
"We come into the world alone, we leave the world alone." James Anthony Froude
