Another poem, my therapy

The Picture

I pick up his picture I have in a gilded frame.
It is cold and the glass that separates us doesn’t fill the void.
I wish I could simply crack it open and retrieve the warmth of the day that picture was taken.
I remember so well, the momentum of when I looked into the lens, and froze for infinity his smile,
the twinkle in his eye,
his energy,
his hope,
his everything.
Now I have the picture,
I don’t have the voice,
nor the touch.
The five senses have been stripped away.
I remember his strong hands,
the wooly sweater that wrapped his shrunken frame.
Yet, he managed to smile, to let us believe that he would make it through,
that we, too, would pull through.
I look behind him in the picture, on the mantlepiece, we had placed a small bouquet of hollies,
mom and I had bought it at the market,
It had been blessed in church that morning.
Small token of hope, fresh and green, that we all clung to. It has been blessed, it will save him, I thought.
Next to the fireplace, the book shelves, crammed with books, encyclopedias, knowledge of the sea floor, the earth crust, the magma that he so cherished and loved.
He has gone back to them.
Beneath the bookshelf, the worn out leather chair, next to the stereo where he listened to the soothing beats of the old African drums. Where he spent countless hours surrounded by all that he loved and those who loved him.
The chair sits empty, the stereo is off, the hearth is cold and empty.
We need him to bring it all back to life.
The picture is all I have.