Locked-In

Locked-In

There's locked-in & there's disaster.
I recently panicked for loss of knowing,
That pales to untimely tragedy:
The first son lost of the next generation.

My laptop won't turn on & for all
My passable experience, I find it
Is not sufficient to fix it now, so entrapt,
All my work lies in inaccessible memory.

But Blaine lay as quiet,
Spilled from Bike Recovery 101,
Where escape was not an option
Included in his final pop quiz.

Her sixteen years do not warrant
That good decisions are made on the go.
She went, he died; his strategy made sense:
Drop it, wheels-first - cushion the collision.

Sixteen years & you're at the turn of your life,
Watching as the stranger pivots on his foot-stand,
Hits your car head-first, helmet not enough to stop
The neck from breaking, 10 minutes to air again.

Trapped inside or already gone? We'll all be haunted,
Because in the end we trusted instruments and science
With the blind faith our parents followed Revealed Truth,
And still won't know the true answer any better any sooner.

"We go on, bills catch up to us, appointments committed.
But same as a tinitis victim hears the tone,
In the quiet niches between distractions,
Our image of you returns, with tubes and absent air.

"Earlier days rejoin: the farm, Valerian Drive
The KC beach acreage, and summers driving
In your mom's car, or dad's, through the county
And places somewhat beyond, yet fogged."

"Sixteen years & you're at the turn of your life,
His family, his child, his life, 'what'what I done?'
Shrunken has your safe refuge become,
Because, for now, you cannot be alone with your thoughts."

Distractions now are sought for their ability
To set aside the image - the playback -
That terrible playback, the worst: not even
Feeling - just evaporating in the pain - the playback!

"But as one who too has faced tragedy, let me bring
A thing to remember and use as you need:
It goes on, it never leaves, and yet,
There are things that make it bearable."

Movie: confronted with a man, who had killed
A Muslim child, thus revenging his own, yet
Facing hell; Gandhi offers him salvation:
Raise a war-orphaned Muslim - as a Muslim.

We find that personal grief is universal,
But healing can only work in private.
Blaine's siblings made that terminal choice,
I had counseled, and bear the common mark.

This decision, made in love, stays with us,
Just as her decision to turn, to beat the traffic,
Stays with her, indelibly, frozen in the loop
Of his deathly slide across rough pavement.

I, myself, wish her no bitterness, but hope
She learns to cope, without burning the core
Of her goodness, without the air of acceptance,
For thus renders charcoal: denial & dissipation.

"Goodbye, friend, nephew; earliest comrade
Beyond my own brothers, yet further away
Than the most casual of present company;
Forever smiling, you stay locked in my memory."

LMC 19Jan08