LONELINESS COVERS ME

LONELINESS COVERS ME

A sweet embrace is now long past.
We didn't know 'twould be our last.

Like blackbirds hide the sun's warm gold,
Sadness hovers, drifts, enfolds.

Hard choice to make -- stay or divorce,
Efforts fail -- must change my course.
Still -- loneliness covers me.

Some choose no mate. Some choose bad.
Alone with another is just as sad.

No matter whose fault, no matter the dirt,
The house is quiet. I’ll always hurt.

When I've been wrong and my friends have run,
even though I've repented of the things I've done ...
loneliness covers me.

Separation or single, or miles between,
Personalities change, events unseen.

Death or divorce, or miles apart --
Separation's bad; it breaks my heart ...
and loneliness covers me.

God in Genesis made a wife
To complement Adam for all his life.

Ecclesiastes says two are better than one* --
To encourage each other, to get things done.

My own poor company -- Oh, how I ache, but
Even God's wise ones made mistakes.

Think of King David, King Solomon, too --
Even God's blessed ones were lonely and blue.

I don't know a thing in this whole wide world

that's worse than being alone** …

and loneliness covers me.

~ by Netagene, January 19-22, 2016

* Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

** a line from the song, “Where No One Stands Alone", written by Thomas Mosie Lister (September 8, 1921 – February 12, 2015)

The title came to me when I was almost asleep. I managed to turn on a lamp. The only thing I had to write with was a pencil (not a pen); the only thing I had to write on was a book. I reached for it (it was something like newsprint), found a blank page, wrote those 3 words, dog-eared the page. Morning came, got the book, could barely read my writing. The first verse came easily because of a recent online communication with friend Mark Turner, whose wife died in 2015. A bit of that poem is a little about other friends as well as a little about myself.