this way to back

I penned a short poem for Angela.
It is called: 'After the Crossroads.'
(A prayer for our young daughter, after her mother lost the plot)

‘tis not for anyone to know why such a path was spelt for you
Nor be there reasons fair or true that your sweet world needs rent in two

‘tis not for Mums, Dads to know ‘til their courses clear disaster show
Nor charge youth with secrets they’ve no right to bear,
alone with lies, no-one to share.

‘tis not for us to know what lies ahead, for tender age leaves much unsaid.
So please forgive our guilt-starred quest, born in sad delusion we knew best.

‘tis life that’s conspired to be unfair, though know you’re loved beyond and there.
Together, we’ll love you now …till all life is sped, and so sadly add your tears to rivers we’ll shed.

But …brave, loving child, whose innocence of truth lies trampled, run awild
Know we both love you beyond despair,
And that at time’s end you’ll find both us waiting there.

Our common prayer each day is that strength, calmness, peace will soak you from above, and drench your strange world in purest, sweetest love.
Our precious child Angela.

Know that you are loved!

2nd May 2008

Dear Katherine
My last conscious thought was at 2:28 , my first at 5:50.
Thoughts of you : with the power to reduce me to a wreck with a glance and make me rage with a word.
I lie in the dark swearing 'I will not love you from this instant' and in the same second am gasping for you and longing for Angela, my little girl like I was being suffocated.
My mind sees facts , my heart disobeys.
My eyes and ears see calculation and betrayal
My heart sees only this perfect girl,
now the woman I have loved so long
My every thought turns to you, around you, crashes against you.
How do I escape?
You are in my soul.
Can't hide from you, nor run from Angela
Trapped. Cannot go forward. Cannot go back. Cannot stay as I am.
If I had some pathetic reason to hope. I'd shut up go away and hope.
If my heart could fathom some reason to rebuild, I'd begin construction at once
Please, oh architect of this thing, tell me what to do?
Is this what love is ?
If so, the distinction between my love and others has to be : my love is true.
Crazy yes, but constant and true, and enduring.
Worthy beyond reason, beyond doubt,
But love beyond argument.
Now , is this a lifetime commitment ?
Or a lifetime sentence?
I embrace my 'love-duty' to Angela as a joyous voluntary incarceration forever
Your imprisonment of my heart and my every thought is a spell I can't break.
Fourteen years is a quarter of my life , my thoughts, my hopes and the very greatest of my love.
It's a third of yours and the whole of Angela's.
We are like an omelette which has been cast aside because it is technically and spiritually not possible for it to be unscrambled: You, me and her are that one.
You are resolutely making a new omelette with new ingredients. A new mixture, comprising all of you, leftovers of her and no pinches of me. But we ( lots of Angela and all of me) are over here, in the corner, in the bin. Each passing day sees more discards and wrapping paper from a new reality dropped on top of us and when it is full, you are going to take the bag down to the drop-off point.
You are so much a part of 'us'. How else can I say it?
Would I have been worth anything , anything at all , all this time, if I just let it all be now just because you have chosen someone new?
I miss your love so very much and do not know where to go.
Please tell me how?
Ben
2nd May 2008