"Anniversary"
Each year it comes
With memories of loss
On the same day
Years and lives apart...
The 20th of March
Waits in sadness
A dark spot
On her lonely soul...
A mother's early exit
Cruelly overwhelmed
Then a sundering adoption
Pulled sisters away...
New relative parents
Changed names
Erasing the past
With loveless care...
Life's passage flowed on
School, marriage and child
Before cancer's stalking
Hungrily took a sister...
On the same March day
Compounding grief
With new shadows
Colder than before...
Each year her spirit
Battered and fragile
Seeks meaning's solace
Just beyond grasping...
Quietly she waits
Her private reckoning
Each winter's ending
With interrupted love...
Never to know what might have been
When hope and connection filled forever days.
Paul Colaluca (3/20/09)