A Question of Faith

It’s strange how helplessness can enfold one
Eat into your psyche, make your mind undone
Watch those you love suffer and the inadequacy
Binds you inexorably with fetters that only you can see
Walking through mind’s dank tunnels, empty footsteps echoing
Through the forgotten corridors of confidence, slowly going
Ever closer to the point where even hope is not an option
And to that dark place inhabited only by total desolation
Now I can see how faith has always kept me from despair
And protected me from the ghosts that stand out there
Lining the path of memory, a silent cavalcade
Shouting soundlessly a litany of the mistakes I’ve made.
The near and dear for whom the owl called their name
Crowding in my memories, as I relive their loss again.

Twenty years friendship through the good times and the bad
And now it’s the inability to protect that makes me so desperately sad
When the prayers were put in motion, when the wheel spun in the air
For the person who needed them the most – prayers were not there
With all the faith in my very being I prayed for one now gone
That the outcome be for the best, that what must be, would be done
Giving insufficient thought to the fact I should pray equally for two
When I concentrated first on her, I should have turned my thoughts to you.
Prayer, which I know to be the most powerful force of healing
Was not centred on you, on the horror you were feeling
Only now when I’ve had the chance to look you in the eyes
Can I see the anguish there is more than even when a mother dies

Now the thoughts of “should have done’ turn in my mind
And the memories of things I thought I had left behind
Come back and demand a more careful scrutiny, I find
I hear the sound of my father’s voice stir like dead leaves
The sound of desperation too soft for me to hear, I wish again
For ears that can hear as clearly as they should, as if I believe
That I did not know in my heart what he tried so urgently to say
He could not go on, decided that he must let go and fade away
In the darkest corners of my mind, I turn it over, face the pain
I phoned the nursing sister; she thought he had weeks to live
Twenty minutes later he was dead and I had myself to forgive.
Two years later again a parent ill, and once again too late
My mother now unconscious, goodbyes were said to one who couldn’t wait
My brother left to switch off the machines and consign her to her fate.

How could I have forgotten the burden you would have to bear?
That the strength that could have held you was the power of prayer?
For so many before I knew I’d done the best I could at that time
Now I find I cannot accept the fact the short-sightedness was mine.
So take it out, examine both the texture and the bitter feel of blame
Dismantle ego brick by brick, layer by layer and give each its proper name
However difficult the task slowly, step by step, looking honestly, I realise
Quite how much of blame, recrimination and inadequacy is just a disguise
Ego dressed and ready to go is masquerading as compassion in my eyes
We all strive for happiness for those we love with undiluted sincerity,
But a wise monk said to me we need only to pray for strength and serenity.
I love you and tried to do the best I could while your world fell apart
Always it was you and your shelter from harm that was first in my heart
At last at peace, I let it go – you will forgive my heedlessness I know.