Driving through empty fields at night,
the sky is like a black velvet cover,
quiet and heavy.
I searched for stars but there was no light
and I felt a sadness descend like an unwelcome rain.
Tears turned the road blurry as I cried.
For some reason, I saw your hands
in my mind’s eye, your big, calloused hands,
rough and with fingers always slightly bent
like they belonged to someone older, and I missed
them so badly. I looked up at God in all that blackness
and I asked Him, What have you done? Why?
Still quiet and heavy, the sky just looked at me.
I knew there was no answer. Not now.
Unbidden, I saw your hands in the fire, skin crackling like
fried chicken and melting and turning to ashes.
Those beautiful, strong hands are gone.
It’s the only part of you I am brave enough to watch burn.
So what is the meaning of love?
What purpose did it fulfill when it couldn’t save you?
Our love was a different fire than the funeral pyre,
the heat of it not consuming but blooming.
Oh, it gave us breath when life
knocked the wind out of us, together we stood.
We were like two old oak trees,
our roots entwined, sharing nourishment,
sunlight green running between us, our branches touching.
Together we were beauty.
For all that love gave us, it was not perfect to the end,
for it couldn’t hold together what death separated.
Some day I will have all the answers and I will
once again hold those dear hands before we scoop
up water in them from the river of life and drink deeply.
What miracles of heaven and earth will we touch?
There will be perfect peace in us and around us and
we will never be separated again.
That will have to be enough.
It will be more than enough.
Photo by Lisa Paul
Copyright ©2026 Lisa Paul. All rights reserved.
Written in response to dVerse Poetics, hosted by wonderful Dora.
Whatever the subject you choose to write on for this poetics challenge, I’d like you to use the rhetorical device of a simile. You can use similes all the way through like Brimhall; or use one or two to bring your poetry to full effect, whether in the beginning, middle, or end; or use it like Ciardi to structure the whole of your poem, enlarging on a single image of comparison. You may also choose to smile or not smile while doing so. I hope you smile.
A Little Bit of Everything, With Love 
Deep and powerful writing that feels personal and familiar. I enjoy the imagery.
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Thank you so much
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Lisa, my heart is breaking along with yours. I know the love you describe and I can only imagine the loss and heartache you are feeling. You have your faith and it’s strong; hold onto that because at times get rough, that’s all we have. Thank you for this intimate and beautiful share, my friend. ❤️
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Thank you for your kind words.
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What a heartfelt poem about loss… love the focus on hands. it feels so close, and afterwards there is nothing that can replace the touch.
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You are right, Bjorn. Thank you so much.
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What a heart-wrenching poem, but this to shall pass and in the end we will once again be in the presence of a perfect love.
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Your words are so true. Thank you so much.
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Lisa, your ache for missing your beloved intertwined tree comes though so clearly. To find the real thing and then have it taken away, it is a tragic mystery as to why it had to happen.
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I wish I could know why. Thank you for your lovely words.
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Deeply moving in its still raw grief, and the imagery mirrors emotion so clearly, it’s hard not to grieve with you, Lisa. Such loss is so very painful. I think the imagery of driving through the darkness in the first lines hit me the hardest. That simile, of the night sky being “like a black velvet cover,/ quiet and heavy” I related to right away, that claustrophobic silence of loss. So much hope in this poem too, and faith that continually reaches out to God with questions as a child with her Heavenly Father. “What miracles of heaven and earth will we touch?” We’ll find out, on that day. ❤️
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