Forever a Shadow

The moment he took that last breath
I felt my heart give way
My soul shriveled to nothing
It turned the darkest shade of grey
Fire burned within these eyes
Tears that pooled on the floor were filled with anger
Damn this war!
Many searched for words of comfort
Trying to revive this shadow
Restore it to the woman it once had been
Soon they found nothing could be said
Day after day a little voice of hope would whisper
Maybe there was a mistake
The more time that passed
I realized it must be true
Very slowly the sadness begins to recede
With the help of friends life has started moving again
But the anger may never fully lessen
Others have floated into my life
The emptiness however still remains
It’s him I need
The nightly news does nothing to cool the fire
All too often it’s the wood feeding it
Helping it grow and burn brighter
Oh how I loved him
Such an amazing courageous man
Alone in the inky silent darkness of night
I often awaken to the sound of his voice
For a moment I search for him
Elated that he has at last come home to me
And then the cold reality hits
Tears sting my eyes
I hadn’t heard him at all it was only a dream
No longer able to hold it back
A river of tears soaks my pillow
Lord how I need him
Until the day we meet again
I am destined to be nothing more
Than a shadow in the moonlight
Perfectly visible
But never really there

My horse had been lamed in the foot
In the rocks at the back of the run,
So I camped at the Murderer's Hut,
At the place where the murder was done.

The walls were all spattered with gore,
A terrible symbol of guilt;
And the bloodstains were fresh on the floor
Where the blood of the victim was spilt.

The wind hurried past with a shout,
The thunderstorm doubled its din
As I shrank from the danger without,
And recoiled from the horror within.

When lo! at the window a shape,
A creature of infinite dread;
A thing with the face of an ape,
And with eyes like the eyes of the dead.

With the horns of a fiend, and a skin
That was hairy as satyr or elf,
And a long, pointed beard on its chin --
My God! 'twas the Devil himself.

In anguish I sank on the floor,
With terror my features were stiff,
Till the thing gave a kind of a roar,
Ending up with a resonant "Biff!"

Then a cheer burst aloud from my throat,
For the thing that my spirit did vex
Was naught but an elderly goat --
Just a goat of the masculine sex.

When his master was killed he had fled,
And now, by the dingoes bereft,
The nannies were all of them dead,
And only the billy was left.

So we had him brought in on a stage
To the house where, in style, he can strut,
And he lives to a fragrant old age
As the Ghost of the Murderer's Hut.