For the poetry lovers out there...

I am not a big fan of poetry.  I usually prefer straight talk (just tell me what you mean).  But sometimes you can't express your feelings with "straight" talk.  Sometimes you need to paint a picture with words.  This poem made me cry this morning when I read it.  If you have lost someone you love, you will be able to relate to the feelings expressed.  You may have to read it more than once (reading out-loud helps).

     "How can I go;
How rise, and take the path and know
I have no hand to hold, no face
To meet me on the way at any place!
     I stand
Just where I held his hand;
     I took--
Just here the wind hath shook
His gold curls, and his feet
This far came with me: then let me but repeat,
Just standing where I am,
All that his lips said--sacred as a psalm--
While we were moving on, before I knew
His footsteps would stop him.  So new
The way looks on beyond; if I could stay
If I could but live over day by day
The sweet gone-by; if I could be
Found waiting where he left me--but I see
A step ahead which I must take.
What that my heart should break;
     What that I cry--
Or am too mute to lift on high
A cry for pity--I must go;
Reach out for other hands; know
The bleak places of new hills; be strong:
Carry my burden all along
The uphill road; leave
All our footprints in the path that, in and out, weaves
On together until now; must take
The new step on alone, and make
My eyes lift to the sun, and look
At purple hill, and throbbing brook,
     And make
My hands reach out again to take
Flowers, that will grow against my feet and keep
Reminding me I have no other hands to put them in!
     Steep
Be the way or level, can it matter now?
If I must leave his footprints does it matter how?
If I must go, walk just the same,
Without his love-lips murmuring my name
     I only know
It cannot matter much the way I go
So that the path leads high,
Leads closer, every day, toward the sky:
Leads, as God will, toward the meeting-place
     Where I shall look upon my loved one's face."

---George Kringle 1886