The Chill

I love this time of year, right up until the moment
when I feel the chill in the summer eve.

The back of my arms legs neck, the slight scent of decay.

We're bright and beautiful in the summer sun
and then nightfall
and night breeze
and the darkness spreads around me.

We fucked up last year.  We didn't prepare.
Too consumed by the stunning child in our haunted lives
the rage and sadness and death and madness
snuck up, as only memories can do.

Five years without Silas.
A blazing son on his way to his amazing birthday
that instead is merely anniversary.

That first chill of late summer orients my soul.
Distracted by the wild life and breathing love
I suddenly feel exactly like the night we collected the birthing tub.
The indigo evening, the creaking crickets, the harbingers of doom;
they are now his silent calls made mine, made into
the broken sounds of hope stilled, that future killed.

I love this time of year,
but I cannot breathe in the gorgeous evening summer breeze
as my love for Silas falls from my wet, silent eyes,
and I die a little more inside, again,
wanting him quietly, deeply, desperately as dusk settles.
Waiting for his breath I sit still,
chilled to my bones in the sweet summer eve.

~~~~~

Please post a poem or prose rant to your lost child.  My son would have been five years old on Sept. 25, and instead I just get Fall.  What do you get?  What have you found?  What can any of us do about being part of this tribe?