BY HER OWN HAND.

© Copyright Lyn Thiry, 2009

She is gone now
by her own hand,
we who are left behind
gnash our teeth.

The closer the blood
the deeper the cutting,
what if's and if only's
muttered through shame.

Shame that we didn't,
couldn't rise higher, reach
the last fragments of a mind
we may still have recognised.

Shame before our fellows,
her lack became ours.
Shame before our God
that we didn't see the nails
perhaps even handed her
the hammer.

I like to think she and her
god huddled together
in the trenches of her mind
and she was given an early mark.

But she wasn't my grandchild
so what do I know?