Shrouded and Cloaked

This is the kind of day

Shrouded and cloaked in clouds and showers

A day with no exclamation marks

This is the kind of day when he would have called

To share a groaner of a pun

Match calendars for lunch

Or just to see if I was still alive

Which of course he isn’t

Some ghosts linger longer than others

I’ve had my share of losses over a lifetime

Sometimes it isn’t the pain of the loss as much

As it’s empathy with the bereaved

Like the time a classmate’s younger brother

Was struck down in a traffic accident

I will always be haunted by the memory of his mother’s eyes

Noticed obliquely a few months later when I was over at their house

Her eyes shiny as polished chrome but full of grief’s infinity

Some ghosts seem bound to places

Where they passed or where we shared a moment

Or maybe a song will shuffle its way into a tendril

Of sweet remembrance

A recollection of spectral intensity

This is the kind of day

When spirits walk beside me

Shrouded and cloaked

In clouds and showers

 

 

David Trudel   ©  2013