And They Were Gone
The first shock, albeit minor, was leaving
a crisp, quiet winter morning in the Hill Country
to enter the warmth, comfort, and busyness
of a diner in full breakfast mode, with a TV above the door.
The next shock has never left my soul.
I looked up…
And they were gone.
Others have left my life before and since.
Some tragically but mostly as a normal thing.
And these were strangers –
I only knew Christa’s name.
But this was different.
There was a majestic plum
then a flash of terrible light
and they were gone.
Thirty-six years have past
and the tightening of my
face and chest return,
as do the tears streaming down my face.
From hope and joy and dreams
to emptiness and despair;
in the blink of an eye
they were gone.
Forever gone.
But I’m not gone, yet,
nor hope nor joy nor dreams.
And the tears…
they always dry.
a crisp, quiet winter morning in the Hill Country
to enter the warmth, comfort, and busyness
of a diner in full breakfast mode, with a TV above the door.
The next shock has never left my soul.
I looked up…
And they were gone.
Others have left my life before and since.
Some tragically but mostly as a normal thing.
And these were strangers –
I only knew Christa’s name.
But this was different.
There was a majestic plum
then a flash of terrible light
and they were gone.
Thirty-six years have past
and the tightening of my
face and chest return,
as do the tears streaming down my face.
From hope and joy and dreams
to emptiness and despair;
in the blink of an eye
they were gone.
Forever gone.
But I’m not gone, yet,
nor hope nor joy nor dreams.
And the tears…
they always dry.
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Russell Willis
Russell Willis won the Sapphire Prize in Poetry in the 2022 Jewels in the Queen’s Crown Contest (Sweetycat Press) and has published poetry in over thirty online and print journals and twenty print anthologies. Russell grew up in and around Texas and was vocationally scattered as an engineer, ethicist, college/university teacher and administrator, and Internet education entrepreneur throughout the Southwest and Great Plains, finally settling in Vermont with his wife, Dawn. He emerged as a poet in 2019 with the publication of three poems in The Write Launch. Russell’s website is https://REWillisWrites.com
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