"I Promised"

“I Promised”
(for Bob and Virginia)

Look how long he carries her, see how drawn
his face is.
She does not eat, she will not sip the water
coagulated so it will not slip down her throat
left helpless by the massive stroke.

Look how he longs for her, see how far
the words fly.
He cannot speak, he will not give in to the
mocking swarms of angry words that slip dribbling
not from his heart but from his throat.

“I promised God I would care for her,
I promised Him in sickness and health.
I promised God, I know He heard me,
I promised Him, where is His promised help?”

Catching the late afternoon shadows that leave
sharp silhouettes against the pale green siding,
he pushes her wheelchair (it is no burden;
she is a tiny bird in a nest). He pushes her wheelchair
to the deck facing south; their favorite place
forever. Over half their lives, nearly half a century,
they have watched the highway from gravel to asphalt.

He pushes her to the second pew from the back,
her chair fits neatly in the aisle; and they hold hands
from announcements to benediction. She is greeted so
sweetly by the circle of hands that touch hers, touch his;
their tears wet the fingers of each laying on of hands.

Look how long He carries them; see how He watches
their rising and sitting. Do you notice how He slows
His own pace to meet their shuffling gait?

No one pens their ending or beginning,
no one chooses the timing either way.
I am sure he would write
her and his final silence
at just the right time,
at just the same time, asleep
to awaken
hand-in-hand beyond the river
in the New Land neither rushed or lagging.

They hear the Voice they know kept them waiting,
and hear His “well-done” like a trumpet call of dawn.