No one spoke.
The clock ticked once
and seemed to think better of it.
Evening settled in the room
like someone taking a seat
Mom started the hymn.
Dad found it
a breath later.
I come to the garden alone…
Her voice stepped forward steady,
like a lantern at dusk.
His followed,
thin as winter light
through hospital blinds.
But it was there.
Still there.
My brother, my sister, and I
stood close to the wall,
hands folded into ourselves,
doing everything we could
not to break the moment -
not to move,
not to breathe too loud,
not to fall apart,
not to make it harder
for them to sing.
Two voices
that had called each other
across kitchens,
across long car rides,
across the long weather of a marriage,
meeting again
above white sheets
in the hush of goodbye.
She carried the melody
like a hand he could hold.
He gathered breath
the way a tired traveler
gathers steps.
And the hymn -
old as Sunday mornings
and pews worn smooth by prayer -
rose between them
like a garden opening in the dark.
You could hear the years in it:
laughter over supper,
arguments cooling into forgiveness,
the creak of a porch swing,
a baby crying in the next room.
All of it
braided into that song.
Her voice steady.
His fragile.
Yet together
they made something whole again,
two lives holding fast
against the unraveling.
And when the last note
thinned into silence,
no one moved.
The room stayed still.
No one spoke.
Not us.
Not the clock.
As if the song
had not quite finished
leaving.
GBS jr
2023
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