A Sense of duty (excerpt)

I listen to the voices of those

talking quietly of their day

of their worries,

and sharing the joy

of milestones missed

the sadness of memories

and the missing of you.

I watch men who stand

leaning, crying in a grief

that has no sense of ending

of the keening, of the longing

to hear your voice

before the sound

of it is forgotten

and that dread of forgetting.

There is a kind of peace here.