The Last Swing

In the backyard where grass no longer grows,

The swing still hangs where the wind softly blows.

Ropes frayed like the edges of a lullaby,

Seat worn down by summers long gone by.

It creaks with the hush of remembered play,

Of a child once laughing the afternoons away.

I watch it sway though no child is near—

The ghost of joy and a shadowed tear.

Your shoes still sit by the garden shed,

Red with stars, untouched, unsaid.

You left them there on the day it rained—

The day the light inside me waned.

I swore I'd hear your feet once more,

Running wild from porch to door.

But silence now is my cruelest friend,

And time forgets what it cannot mend.

I hung wind chimes to call you back.

Tied ribbons in blue, your favorite track.

I sang the songs you used to hum,

Each note a tremble, each line gone numb.

"Don’t cry, Mama," you once told me,

"Sad is just the seed of happy, you’ll see."

But you were five, with eyes full of sky,

You didn't know children sometimes say goodbye.

They said the fever was just a phase,

A cold that lingered for a couple days.

But your smile faded with every dawn—

And by the third, you were simply… gone.

They brought flowers. They brought food.

They spoke in hush, said, “She was so good.”

But none could bear to look me in the face—

Too afraid to find their own child’s place.

I dreamt last night you came to me,

Dragging mud from knees and glee.

You said, “Come swing with me again,”

But I awoke to wind and the morning rain.

Your brother won’t talk. He just draws now.

Mostly stars and a girl with a crown.

Sometimes he hands me a crayon blue,

Says, “This is her sky. She’s waiting for you.”

And I try. I do. I try to go on.

I bake your cookies though the flavor feels wrong.

I fold your shirts though they don’t smell the same.

I even whisper your nickname in shame.

Because grief is strange—it lies and it grows.

It teaches you how absence shows.

But somewhere in this pain, so deep and true,

A thread of hope pulls me back to you.

I see you in sparrows, bold and small.

I hear you in laughter down the hall.

I feel you in sunlight, warm on skin—

A whisper of where you might have been.

The swing still moves, now slower, light,

As if you’re rocking between wrong and right.

As if your soul, too bright to rest,

Still needs one last childhood jest.

So I sit beneath the sycamore,

And I hum your song just once more.

The melody crooked, the lyrics unsure,

But the echo is gentle, broken, pure.

The stars appear, as soft as your hands,

And time forgets all its strict demands.

I close my eyes. I start to believe—

You haven’t left. You just had to leave.

And maybe that’s what hope becomes:

The swing that moves when nightfall comes.

A space left open, a seat still warm,

The feeling of love beyond the norm.

Your memory is the thread I keep,

Woven through dreams and sleepless sleep.

Each stitch a tear, each tear a stitch—

Mending a soul no grief can ditch.

I may not see your face again,

Nor hear your voice through summer rain.

But still I wait beneath that tree—

For the swing to sway, and set you free.

And when it does, I’ll smile, not cry.

I’ll know you’re near, just not nearby.

For grief may hold, but hope will sing—

In the quiet creak… of the last swing.