feels empty

defined by family

the house feels empty,

and I feel partial,

as if part of me has been cut off,

our sons, and their wives, 

are vital to who I am,

and they are no longer here,

gone back to the immediacy 

of their own workaday worlds,

of their own everyday worlds,

our grandchildren, also, 

gone back to the immediacy of home,

of friends, of where on earth 

they stake the flag of their moments,

yet, just as in math, or language, or the spatial, or the heart,

there is an abstract reality below and behind the concrete present,

we are a family, bonded and knowing much of who we are

because we connect so surely to each other,

I cannot ever appreciate my wife enough,

for in the house, empty of children and grandchildren,

I still hold a treasure, and she holds me,

I feel a miracle of love where each of us

knows and appreciates the other,

which in turn allows us to appreciate

the worth of our own selves.

by Henry H. Walker

December 30, ‘19