POETRY
To Remember
My gaze falls on all the spaces
you once occupied
and reality presses me to see
the gaping holes torn open
by your absence.
But death could not steal you from
the borders of my memory,
and in one synaptic spark
I cull through countless moments
colored by your presence
and carefully reconstruct
your contours
until you are there in front of me:
your heart still pumping life
your eyes lit up by a thought
your face turned toward me
as words coalesce on
your lips.
I can see what is not
as if it were —
bittersweet vision
harboring a defiant hope,
for this recollection
was bestowed by One
who remembers
every day of every life
that ever tread the earth
and He has marked the day
of your re-membering,
a day for joining bone to bone
and covering bone with flesh
and blowing breath
deep into hungry lungs.
On that day
you will step beyond
the borders of my memory
into all the spaces you once occupied
and your death is the only thing
that will be forgotten.
Sarah Giles is a freelance author and software developer from Jacksonville, FL. Her academic work has appeared in the Canadian-American Theological Review.
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