The Velvet cloth

Behind me
The Shadow in the back of my mind
Always there to hunt me, to drive me
It’s presence sometimes overlooked but never forgotten
And as time wears on the Shadow grows darker, stronger, nearer.
It matters not how fast I live,
For, as in my nightmares, I can run but each time I look over my shoulder the Shadow is yet closer.
And, in times of such pain that it can produce, both real and imagined,
The torturous agonies that ppress for the removal of its source,
I had turned to face that Shadow,
Beckoning, wanting the release that the enfolding blackness offers.
Yet again and again it refused me,
Laughing, with-holding the certainty I frequently longed for,
But denying any salvation also.

And then, in the joys of christmas giving and sharing with the children I love so dearly,
I allowed my vigil to lapse,
In silent stelth the Shadow that had stalked me ffrom my childhood, finally crept out of imagination and wrapped itself softly about me,
Like a deep, soft velvet cloth descending over me, it stole the images of surprise, joy and wonder that every yuletide gifts.

In relief I welcomed its coming, foolishly believing myself prepared.
For I did not realise the velvet cloth was in fact a sack, sealed with the strongest of threads,
And in my arrogance I heard not the fastening of the chains that bound the darkness close unto me,
Nor was I aware of being placed on the edge of the precipice of sanity.

And as I shuffle along on the brink of the fall,
Do I gain strength in every victory of the struggle for normality, the “achievements”, the problems solved?
Each brakes a link in one of the chains that hold me,
Yet even as that chain falls away, a hurdle overcome, the next binding is being added.
And all the while there are unseen hands pushing, proding at the sack, shoving me over the edge.
And it is only that the hands, though few, of family and friends, that push me back to firm ground are so strong, that the void under my feet fails to claim me.

In the darkness the shadow still taunts me,
The void is not still, not empty and in it I am never alone,
Constantly haunted by the images of memory,
Cataloguing each and every remembered experience,
And in my dreams I am cruely given back the vision that waking again teasingly tares away.
Leaving me only illusive wisps of colour, which evade full recollection.
And though many will think that the worst torment of the velvet cloth is to deny me the sight of the woman I lost my heart to, many years ago,
And that of the children she has so beautifully raised,
My love for them is so deep, my knowledge of them so complete, that I see them clearly with no need of light.

My tears fall silently for other things,
For the white tufts of wave thrown by spray laiden winds against the quay and shore,
For the darkening, brooding, whirling clouds that warn of rain,
For streaming coliding, merging tracks of rain drops as they weave their way down the pane,
For the Autumns gold that dance, skip and chase as they are blown from trees and speed ahead of the breeze to collect in puddles of reds and yellows, the playground of toddlers and puppies.
For the clensing hand of winter snows, that lay upon the land purifying all and hiding the join of earth and sky,
For the smile that I know shines in the eyes of my love when I amuse her, when I stir the pride I know she holds for me and when I hold her close to me,
But also for the vision that previously appeared before me in the mirror which, whilst I hold the images of many others, has been taken by the Shadow, yeilded to the void, forever lost in the sack of Velvet cloth.