Unmoored


Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Run Aground” by: rob kistner © 2/6/24
 

Memories of you

ripples on a dark lake
rise and roll away
into the sunset
toward that forever night

they carry my heavy heart
on their crest
and catch the tears
bittersweet tears
I cry at times

run aground
since you went away

times like now
your brother’s 46th birthday
my thoughts fall to you

would that my boat were here
my special boat
to ferry me
across this ocean of time

over that horizon of death

ferry me this day
to you

to see your face
once again

to hear your beautiful voice
rise in sweet song

would that I could hold you
this day
and tell you son

tell you the 10,000 things
I said far too seldom
when you were still here
in our lives

in my life

*

Unmoored shipwrecked soul
thunderstruck — weathered with grief
broken on the rocks
see there my ship approaches
soon now I will come aboard

*
rob kistner © 2024

Poetry at: dVerse
 

20 thoughts on “Unmoored”

    1. Thank you, Dwight. There are mostly good memories, but there are moments, like my son Justin‘s 46th birthday today, when the memories of our loss of Aaron are bittersweet.

  1. A moving poem in memory of your son, Rob, which swells and rolls with love and grief, especially in these lines:
    ‘they carry my heavy heart
    on their crest
    and catch the tears
    bittersweet tears
    I cry at times’
    and
    ‘Unmoored shipwrecked soul
    thunderstruck — weathered with grief
    broken on the rocks’.

  2. A cry from the heart, Rob. I’m so sorry. Parents should not have to mourn their children, and I imagine the grief is always there and surfaces at times like this.

    “Unmoored shipwrecked soul
    thunderstruck — weathered with grief
    broken on the rocks
    see there my ship approaches
    soon now I will come aboard” <3

    1. The painful feelings are far between nowadays when I think about Aaron because it’s been a long time, but one that mood does hit me like on a big occasion of Justin‘s brother’s birthday yesterday — they hit hard,

  3. Oh… there are a few poems about ships and death here. For me it was more mythology and more general than your very personal one…

    1. As I am turning 77 next week, reflections on death are not unusual for me. They’re not painful, just not surprising. For me they are fascinating. Something I’ve never done before and will get to do, only once. Feels rather profound actually looking at it from that perspective.

  4. Sorry for your loss. Untimely partings always bite deep.
    Many see those who have gone before, when the ship approaches, waving and beckoning them to join the party on board…

    1. It’s been many years, but he was so deeply loved and treasured by our family. He and my son Justin and I were like the three musketeers. We played sports together, pick up games, whatever type of activity struck our fancy. I was divorced from their mother, so it was just us guys when we got together. And then the occasion of Justin’s 46th birthday yesterday, so many wonderful, and now bittersweet memories — it just brought all of that back for Justin and for myself. At 46 and 77, the feeling of missing Aaron struck very deeply. The sense of his not being with us on this big occasion was visceral, as sometimes it is — unexpectedly.

  5. I hear the tender sadness of missing your son. ‘Run aground/since you went away’ pulled at my heart. Thanks for sharing this beautiful testimony of the love between you and your son.

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