Sometimes I wish I could go back

to the beach,

laughing like drunk fools

getting lost in your eyes

holding each other as if we were immortal

like the sea always is

mimicking the waves,

buzzing with love,

mesmerized with each other.

The sunset flaming over us,

luminous with gold radiant fever

against our young skin.

Stepping on the sand,

mingling with the earth and loving, just loving

that moment

you were here

breathing the same air, living all there is to live

without thinking of the end.

And now the sea is empty of you,

unplugged from us

without the breath that brought us together.

But with lastingness

that puts a spell on our heart

extending

the moment that was…

into infinity.

With love,

Christina

P.S. Now is your turn to write a poem that describes your grief and your life after. And if you like you can post your entries below in the comments area.

Can’t wait to read your creations.

Image courtesy of Barn Images via Unsplash.com

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Christina

Christina

Christina Rasmussen is an author, speaker and social entrepreneur who believes that grief is an evolutionary experience required for launching a life of adventure and creative accomplishment.

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31 Comments

  • jeff says:

    Beautiful poem, i’m not a poet but…..

    Two separate hearts became one
    Beating together for 40 years
    Through thick and thin times
    Through happy and sad times
    Always together, never separate
    Now one remains
    Still beating
    Still beating for two

  • Ashley Parks says:

    Only
    The only way to heal seems to be through travel
    Only then do I find happiness again.
    Even though when I arrive to a new destination, my thoughts always lead to you.
    I wish you could see the places I go to forget hurting.
    Only you would know.
    I stare at shorelines, at the ocean, at mountain tops, at villa’s.
    I people watch, I listen to new sounds, I eat new foods. I fill my travel moments with new memories to have, but it’s only you that I wish for.
    I know you are with me, and watching over my shoulder but it’s only you that I”m trying to make peace with.

    • Jenny says:

      Beautiful words just how I am trying to survive with lots of travel, I believe my beautiful husband of 39 yrs is with me seeing all the adventures as I do. Jenny

  • Terry Geino says:

    UNCAGED

    From a wish
    Not of the written word
    To the wings
    That thunder after flashes of light
    From a breath
    Where there are no words to bind my life
    To a candle’s flame
    And the unlimited sways
    That flicker like sudden death
    Traveling beyond the black and white
    Smoke trails
    Melting as the sea and river run wild
    Transcending
    In a world uncaged by possession
    As it dissipates
    Independence rises beyond limitation
    Into the atmosphere
    Existence is liquid
    Choked with newborn hope
    Temperatures ascend
    Fahrenheit free
    And the one who wishes captivity
    Is clouded by
    A soul filled with hope
    That cannot be numbered or gaged
    Dripping from the page
    Without lines
    Into a pool
    Of spiritual
    Liberation

    theterrytree.com

  • Erna Stassen says:

    If you have lost a loved one,
    it is unlikely you will ever fill that hole.

    But you can still grow, and celebrate their life, in all the little things and big things every day.
    You can celebrate their life by taking good care of your own, and continue to love life, with compassion and kindness to yourself and others.

    Let the beautiful spirit of your lost love lighten your heart, make it the most important reason to live more fully and cherish every minute.

    In doing that you will live your life in honor and celebration of your loved one.

    I honor my love, who lived and died so gracefully.

  • Paula says:

    I miss you since that morning
    I miss you every step of my journey.
    I miss you every week, day, hour, second
    you’re so close and so far
    I miss you to cheer me on, to celebrate, to be the stepping stone that never gave up on mE
    Life isn’t far sometimes I used to think
    but life knew better what a great man and teacher you were to me
    One day we will high five all the lessons
    we learned from each other
    the great teamwork we became and will for sure celebrate life after death.
    until I meet you again.

  • I Feel You

    Today you were here in the dandelion fluff
    That almost landed on my arm
    Yesterday you were in a Monarc butterfly
    Too fast to study your colors

    Always touching my senses
    Thoughts of you role through me endlessly
    In dreams I see your face
    I feel you
    I heard you in some one elses voice today

    You are here and you are not here
    Thoughts and pictures are what is left
    Whisked away with the wind like dust
    I still feel you

    I just can’t hold you with my hand
    You left me with a piece of you
    I can not completely understand
    But I try and I listen and I see
    and I feel you.

    Kristin McDevitt

  • I Must Wait

    You were mine `til
    you fell through the
    edge of time
    Through the night
    into the light.
    No more need to fuss
    and fight.
    Feel such sorrow
    but some tomorrow,
    I will follow.
    I will be whole
    When at last my soul
    sails through the sun
    And once again we
    will be one
    I`ll cry no more
    Upon that shore
    At Heaven`s gate.
    But I must wait
    `Til God says when
    You and I shall
    meet again.
    Penniluck McGinnis/Nicolson

  • Linda says:

    My Brother – I miss you
    But why did you go?
    So hard to believe
    Yet it happened – I know…

    You were handsome,
    successful,
    had a beautiful wife
    You were witty, intelligent
    with a wonderful life

    But it all went wrong
    and recession took hold
    Your wife wanted out
    Your life started to fold

    So my brave, funny brother
    took his own life that day
    And my sorrow and pain
    will now not go away

    I prayed you’d get better
    and find joy again
    But I guess in the end
    You were in too much pain

    You will always be
    my Big Brother, and I ..
    will try to remember
    The good times gone by

    For the best part of your life
    you had such a great time
    I could never imagine
    this end down the line

    Most people reluctant
    to talk of you now
    and the way that you died
    is taboo somehow

    But I’ll never forget you
    You should have been here
    So till we meet up again
    I’ll cry a sad tear

  • Rose says:

    Rusted Razor
    The cutting memory
    Of a lost love
    In the teeth of a blade.

  • Stephen says:

    True Love

    True love goes oft unnoticed,
    True love begets no reward
    True love happens, ‘tis not planned,
    Yet true love cannot be ignored.

    True love comforts, true love soothes,
    There is no equal on this earth.
    Residing in one’s inner soul,
    True love refines one’s entire worth.

  • Stephen says:

    IN MY HEART
    by Stephen T. Fleharty

    I’ll never kiss your lips again
    Nor touch your soft and tender skin.
    Not look into your eyes of blue
    Nor whisper secrets just we knew.

    I’ll never see your smile so bright
    Nor sense your breathing late at night.
    Not share the future’s bold frontier
    Made with plans we held so dear.

    My love for you will endure.
    Of that, I am very sure.
    And although we are far apart,
    Forever is where you’re in my heart.

    You had to leave, not wanting to,
    Gone to a place that we both knew
    Was finer even than this life
    Which has times of woe and strife.

    The years we spent, I will cherish
    Until the day that I, too, perish.
    On that day, we’ll start anew
    The love that bonded us so true.

    My love for you will endure.
    Of that, I am very sure.
    And although we are far apart,
    Forever is where you’re in my heart.

  • Stephen says:

    What Now?

    Twilight is past and darkness reigns
    The mem’ries of light, too, fade.
    The future predicts unbridled pain
    For me — a masquerade.

    Awake, I face fate’s cruel test
    Of bearing one more day,
    The absence of your loving breast
    And your sweet bouquet.

    Love is strong, yet can’t deny
    The embers that remain
    Will fail to soothe my mournful sight,
    Which I cannot contain.

    My days are spent as one destroyed
    And wondering without hope
    Of why I cannot fill this void
    And why I cannot cope.

    ‘Til death doth claim me and my soul,
    I shall love thee still.
    ‘Til then, it is my lonesome role
    To accept God’s will.

  • Tina Mazzara says:

    In Due Season~
    Waiting is the hardest thing…
    Waiting for grief to pass…
    Waiting for purpose to be revealed…
    Waiting.

    In due season, the storms will pass
    freeing your mind of expectations
    Allowing you to view the world anew
    Fresh and vibrant, full of love.

    Look around and savor the day.
    For time passes much too quickly.
    Days and weeks and years are but a moment.

    Waiting becomes the purpose for now.
    A lovely gift
    A season of healing
    Revealing, guiding
    In due season.

  • Lela Foos says:

    she met a man
    who loved her
    quietly and completely
    he taught her things
    she never knew
    she needed to learn
    and then the man
    who loved her
    left this world
    and in his leaving
    gave her courage
    to finish
    their dreams

    • Janna says:

      My “Alpha Poem” about my grief at the moment

      Aching…
      Behind my heart.
      Counting… the
      Days…the months
      Ever…
      Forever…
      Grief.
      Helpless, hopeless…
      Is how I feel
      Joyless fog
      Keeps
      Loneliness in…
      My heart… in my body
      Nothingness…
      Oh how it hurts.
      Pain and
      Questions?
      Remembering…
      Soul mates
      Till the end.
      Union of hearts.
      Vulnerable now.
      Wanting now.
      Xylophone of lost harmony.
      You…will always be remembered…never to be
      Zero.

    • Janna says:

      this poem is beautiful Lela…exactly how I feel ♥

    • Alex says:

      Perfect.

  • Tina Mazzara says:

    Freedom Calls~
    Freedom calls and beckons me to join her…
    “Life awaits, no more need for tears”.

    Mourning cries have emptied their loss upon the ocean’s shore.
    The sun rises just the same.

    How dare the world continue when this loss has crippled me so?
    How dare the beauty of this day remind me that life goes on
    when I’m so wounded and afraid?

    Freedom calls and beckons me to join her.
    “Take my hand, I will lead you…
    gentle steps made…
    a little everyday.
    Trust in me, my darling love.
    You aren’t meant to live this way.
    Look up and take my hand…
    Love will find a way.”

    Freedom calls.

  • Joyce says:

    WILDERNESS

    It used to be so easy, you know.
    Moses, parting the Red Sea. Life at your bidding.
    Order up another baby, a pergola in the back.
    Restore your mood at Ikea.
    Life: stackable, cheap, disposable.
    Another day, another problem.

    Decades of this.

    Baby now gone.
    Heart in shambles.
    Life in full bloom.

    Welcome.
    *
    Sit now, like meditative Buddha
    A tug of the heart, all lifted.
    Breathing smile. All in, All out.
    Indulge. Observe. All softening silt.
    How to see clearly, unless obscured?
    To rise, unless the fall?
    To understand as to be understood?

    Embrace such painful decay. This skinning alive.
    A Self losing self, most beautiful in the shredding.
    Your shroud, now a spiritual artifact.
    All Mystery… even to life itself.

  • Kathy says:

    My love
    You are my heart, my soul, my love and my life!
    I’m trying to move on as your wife!
    I use to be happy and smile and laugh a lot ! I find it so hard to go on and about!
    My tears won’t go away my heart won’t stop hurting! I love and miss you forever and ever! Until we meet again!

  • Inger-M says:

    I watched you die
    Your body was
    jaded and slashed by disease but
    your life spark still burned

    In that grey hospital room
    cold rain poured down over
    the two of us standing there by
    your bed
    knowing that your last breath
    was imminent
    That grey hospital room
    that had been buzzing with action all night, now
    there was only the hiss of life support

    24 hours earlier you
    loved me and
    your life journey
    was victorious and magnificent
    You were still magnificent
    but your battered body was overriding
    your beautiful consciousness
    Time was running out
    You and time
    were slipping through our fingers
    there was nothing we could do to
    hold you back

    Your time had come
    and you left us
    your wife and your daughter
    The two of us who
    still have lives to live
    but they are lives already scarred by
    a son and a brother who went ahead of you
    You saw him and
    you knew he was waiting for you and
    you went to be with him
    Now you two have your own time

    The agonizing pain of missing you both
    keeps driving holes through my heart

  • Phil says:

    My Dear Love,
    It’s been nearly 8 months since you took your last breath
    I still cry every day…over something…
    That reminder…
    A song
    A picture
    A newly found piece of paper with your written notes…
    Then, is when the tears just roll freely down my cheeks
    But I am doing better, building my new life.
    And have many good moments. Many, many more than at first…
    I’m learning to embrace our 37 years of memories with gratitude rather than sadness.
    I still write you nearly every day, telling you what I’m up to.
    And, of course, I will always love you.
    Me

  • Dwayne Melton says:

    Our Talk

    Is everything gonna be ok?
    will it never be the same
    I still think of you everyday
    I’ll never forget your name

    you touched so many lives
    so many levels, so many ways
    your the one they cant forget
    i know they cant anyways

    your unique sense of humor
    the antics that you played
    put a smile on everyones face
    and gave them a brighter day

    your warm and thoughtful hugs
    your infectious amazing laughs
    things we will never forget
    as we hold on to our past

    your a thought in our future
    as you were in our past
    still a part daily lives
    and that will always last

    thank you for the talk
    I know you always hear
    we’ll speak another time
    but next time I’ll hear

  • Suzanne Weaver Vignaud says:

    I look For You

    I look for you in the clouds as they drift by, in the stars at night, on the moon, in the waves, on the horizon, in the shapes of the hills, in the branches, in the fire light, in the shadows. I see patterns of musical notes, a part of your bass, a glimpse of your smile and the sparkle and fire in your beautiful brown eyes when the sun is setting and the sky is ablaze.

    I look for you when I’m walking in the park behind our house, through the trees, down the path, by the ball filed, by the two graves that rest in the shade of an old oak tree, on the top of the hill. I almost hear your voice saying “Wilbur” mimicking Mr. Ed complete with warble to Pam’s black pug and see your smiling face greeting familiar faces as you stroll comfortably along.

    I look for you when I walk Ms. Honey down the trails at Mary Searight, by the creek, in the shade, by the ravine where we would sit and rest, in the Spanish moss that hangs from old worn trees that reminds me of Louisiana that I call “Robert’s place”, in the butterflies that light on me and effortlessly drift from flower to flower, from breast to breast, that beckon me to follow them around the bend and then disappear or become camouflaged blending into new and old windswept ageless surroundings.

    I look for you in my dreams when I finally go to sleep with pillows stacked beside me that have replaced your handsome body where you snuggled beside me on your side of our bed where the comfort of your arms used to hold me tight each night and your gentle touch would ease my fears, your love so satisfying, sincere, revived and so different now lost in the lonesomeness, missing your warm, furry, sweet smelling body that encased your beautiful soul and fit so perfectly with mine.

    I look for you in the faces of our beautiful children, inquisitive, intelligent, sensitive, musical, natural, joyful, grateful, loving, busy, healthy, fun-loving, analytical, open minded, spiritual, environmentally sensitive, caring forever blessed from your influence and from our union. Your calm, gentle, kind and patient ways touched family and friends in so many ways. Together we created a home and family that will be forever cherished.

    I look for you and I find you deeply entrenched in my heart and I miss you in every way. I look for you in the music you played, in the hearts of the many lives you touched, in our home, on trips, during holidays, special occasions, in old photographs, where you used to lie on the couch. I close my eyes and try to imagine that you are still physically here, holding my hand, looking into my eyes, feeling your constant warmth, feeling your sweet kisses, feeling you melt into me.

    I look for you and find you in the love and tenderness we shared and my heart is filled with gratitude, respect and longing. When you told me, ” There is no getting over you”. When you proposed to me. When you told me, “I just want to thank you so much…I just love you so much”. When you said, “You want to be happy, I want you to be happy”. You gave me so much. These gifts I give to you. Wherever your spirit soars I soar with you. I will love you forever and ever my sweet darling. Thank you so much for your amazing love. I just miss you so much.

  • Janet says:

    To my beloved Paul

    There is a story in my eyes,
    Something that you should not be surprised.
    My eyes and my heart have seen to much,
    More than I can ever discuss.
    I lost so much and there was so much pain.
    Again it is more than I can explain.
    The hurt is so deep and though I try it is something I will always keep.
    I saw your pain, I saw you die, and I asked the gods why.
    As I watch you leave me a little everyday, it was me I wanted to go away.
    You are my hero, you are my soul, and I could not bear to see you go.
    I could not go through what you did, but know one knows as we did.
    I saw you see the light when you left, and I know in my heart it was best.
    Because of your strength I will honor you, and my life will always be a tribute to you.
    And now I’m left to carry on, with a heart that can’t go on.
    I try so hard to be strong, and I pray it won’t be long.
    To see your face, to touch your skin, to have you back again.
    You taught me how to take care of things , but now I’m here and don’t know how to begin.
    Without your love, without spirit. I’m just left here all alone, and no place to call my home.
    As I sit here and I cry, again I ask the god’s why.
    Why did the world take you away, so soon and leave me this way.

  • Gary says:

    I tried
    To do what I could to keep us happy.
    I failed.
    I tried
    To live up to who you wanted me to be.
    I failed.
    You held up a mirror to me and said,
    “See that— not even close to good enough.
    You failed.”

    Now I pay in hard-earned money and
    Never-ending regret.
    In quicksand now,
    Resistance sinks me deeper.
    So I must learn to remain still
    And be grateful for my current position.
    I see the view around me of the forest trees.
    Perhaps, one day, I will walk among them,
    Hand-in-hand with someone with a new mirror.

  • Sharon says:

    I am standing with my toes at the edge of the ocean, feeling an unyielding pull towards the lapping waves. There is great comfort in knowing the force of the waves will take me with them. No decisions to be made. No second guessing. The unwavering certainty of the soliloquy of the water dance a welcome refuge in this relentless storm.

  • Roberta Orosz says:

    Petrichor

    The sky was divided
    I stood in the warm pink light of sunset
    waiting for the gray cloud blanket to draw nearer
    I moved to the shelter of our front porch
    and sat in my chair
    your chair is there, empty
    I remember our habit and anticipation
    we, the storm watchers
    relishing the display of power
    I once told you that I had read
    “one should seek shelter indoors during storms”
    you and I laughed at the same time
    when you said,
    “if we were on a canoe trip I guess the tent would work”
    We watch the branches bend,
    the silent lightning burns bright, we count, one , two, three
    the rumble rolls toward us
    the wind wrings the clouds
    and casts their essence into the dust perfume
    again a searing jolt connects to ground, we count, one, two
    some leaves lose their grip and never see autumn
    we count,
    one…
    then I look at your empty chair
    back in the here and now

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