Deeper Silver

Two days before my twenty-third birthday
He left
tired months with silence and suddenly away
Left me with six grey hairs and terror at ever loving again.

Twenty-four-and-a-half years old
In the bathroom at work I see it has sprung back glistening alongside brown curls
snatch a single strand from my temple
with a tiny ping and successive echoes
that he could walk down those stairs
ping
how I now miss that youth
ping
how I miss that optimism and trust
ping
which were snatched from hoping fingers.

Fingers
between which the hair begins to smolder, transformed, burning I almost drop it
Purified by molten life.
I see years, sorrows of brothers and sisters
Pain transfigured into understanding
and finally awareness
Yes the roots of life reach deeper now than they did before.

Damn you, hair. Deeper.