Loss

You cannot lose someone, no matter how deeply felt
the loss of them might be, in the physical, material;
the absence of touch, the feel of their presence and,
the warm, living reality of flesh and skin and breath,
so disconnected from an image and a voice, which
is all they have to offer across great distance and space.

As if, the connection has been broken, which it has,
in that literal way which speaks to us so powerfully
and so completely and our nature knows that feeling,
most soulfully, connects us with those we love,
and without that marriage of one body with another,
however fleeting, in the same space - we do lose.

Words may be repeated, over and over, again, and again,
reminding us that we bond at spiritual levels,
for which there is no limit, no distance, no time,
and no space, but in the raw, felt world we know,
this is not true, in any real way which can compensate,
for their absence and the lack of two crucial senses.

Love by its nature will grieve always for the loss
of touch and smell, no matter how often an image may
flicker on a screen, or a voice speak across oceans and
hours, for we were made to hold one another and breathe
in the substance, soul and heart of those we love and
distance will always deny that; reminding us of loss.

You can lose someone. Not completely. But enough
so that it hurts when you are reminded they are not there,
that you cannot reach out and hold them, embrace them,
connect in that way of coming together as two material
beings, in the way that you once did when they were close,
and not far away across oceans. You can lose someone.

But the hardest loss of all is not material; the deepest
oceans and the greatest distance is that where mind and
heart are separated by belief in ways which still surprise,
because once connected, joined, it is impossible to comprehend,
that someone might no longer be there - and yet it happens,
and then the losing yawns deeper, wider, darker than any other.