Just Keep Walking

January 1952
All memory locked away in a silent cave.
My first child, my beautiful son.
Separated from me at birth, his tiny heart beats alone.
This is a death, there is no return to love.
Go through this fire,
Walk away,
Just keep walking.

April 1986
In sunshine family life rides the surf,
but when alone on the shore, I search.
Somewhere he lives, plays, laughs,
I have no face to dream of.
A cold grey sea separates us,
a conspiracy of silence.
'No', the letter said.
'You cannot know, you have no right'.
My pain slips quietly beneath the surface, Time will heal, but it doesn't, it doesn't.

December 1999
From among the gifts and Christmas cards that tumble towards me like foam on a wave, an innocent letter falls at my feet.
'I am writing to introduce myself,' it says.
The words rise from the page as a solitary seagull's cry and enter my silent cave.
I put aside the impossible thought,
but it nudges me like a tide on the turn.
The truth will be heard.
The incoming Christmas tide has brought my child back to me, It is him It is him.

Gaye