CHIMES

The nursery lies empty



As can be seen through the broken window


The cradle lonely,


The Barbies bereft,


And the chimes cry softly in the soothing wind …


A girl lived here once


Laughed and played


A lifetime ago it seems


For there is nothing but an echo


Of the era gone by






A little bear in the corner


Stares now


You can see the pain


In its lonely eyes


Something missing here it says,


Something gone before time.






Hush! Now, can you hear?


That faint gurgle of a happy child


Listen very carefully, like I do


Can you not hear?


A fading, tinkling sound...


Of a shiny new bicycle perhaps?


And now it is all quiet


All that is left


Is the painful resonance of a silent room.






I live with memories fragile,


Of a grassy meadow underneath puffy clouds


Running with her, and her colourful kite


Of a smiling young face


Lost somewhere to a sleeping angel


Of her sucking her thumb,


Tucked to sleep each night


But my memory is sieve


Struggles to hold


What I want to keep,


Tears well up, fall and don’t stop


Standing in the nursery that failed to keep her here,


And the chimes wail softly in the gentle wind,


Its wails die down,


Slowly,


Slowly,


Slowly…