blood on the sand?

.

did i cry out?

in the night
dark and deep,
where dreams swirl about,

did i make a sound?
lost in thoughts
not my own,
or maybe owned, or borrowed?

where reality stalks
where pain & sorrow rend
where grief never slackens
did i cry out?

father? was there ever any blood on the sand?
did anyone find blood on the sand?

i never know what will trigger another wave of anguish,
fresh as that first, when for eight days and nights i searched,
long after all others had given up, through the freezing rain and driving winds
that no poor unprotected soul could for eight minutes have survived.

scrubbing pans in the dining hall, 2 years later, go figure...
inundated by the old grief anew, reduced to sobs and anguish,
most leave me to it, but from the door father shouts “Give it up! Leave it be.”
“I can’t!” cries my soul! my minds eye again searching the wave pounded shores.

for the young wife, the infant daughter,
no trace ever found.

was there ever any blood on the sand?
did anyone find blood on the sand?

i am trapped in this script, like an old forgotten actor
that replays his part on command.
maybe someday, in a hundred years or so
no one will ever again remember

(thursday night)