Unfinished Lullaby

A cycle of poems «Your Melody of Heartache»

She sang it once, half-soft, half-broken,
Rocking slow beneath the hall light’s glow.
The cradle creaked, the world was spoken -
Then silence came… and stole the show.

You were three weeks shy of summer,
Eyes like dawn I’d never see.
She held you close, her voice grown thinner,
Singing low: "Sleep, my love, sleep."

The doctors whispered down the hallway,
Too small, too soon, too much to fight.
But in that room, just for a moment,
Love defied the edge of night.

She started humming an old tune -
One her own mother used to sing.
A thread of grace beneath the moon…
And then - no more. No anything.

No final note. No lullaby complete.
Just breath that stopped, and hearts that fell.
The song remains with broken beat -
A ghost we know too well.

This is our unfinished lullaby,
A melody that couldn’t fly.
Half a verse, one trembling line -
All that’s left of your short time.
We hum it when the house feels cold…
Like singing keeps you from growing old.

Now winter comes, and she still sits
In that same chair by empty walls.
Her fingers trace where warmth once fit,
And sings the part before the falls.

I found the sheet music in a drawer -
Pencil marks where she tried to write
More verses for the arms that bore
A dream too brief to hold all night.

She penciled “Love, you’re not alone,”
Then paused… and folded up the page.
Some songs can’t grow past sorrow’s stone -
They live in grief, they die in stage.

No choir sings. No bells will toll.
Just quiet where a heartbeat should.
That fragile tune consumes us whole—
A hymn of never could.

This is our unfinished lullaby,
A melody that couldn’t fly.
Half a verse, one trembling line -
All that’s left of your short time.
We hum it when the house feels cold…
Like singing keeps you from growing old.

Maybe heaven knows the ending,
The peace we couldn’t give you here.
Maybe stars are softly bending
To carry on what we hold dear.

And if there’s life beyond this pain,
Beyond the cradle, soft and dim…
I hope she sings that song again—
And you can finish every hymn.

Not here. Not now. But far above,
Where time won’t steal the notes we lost.
There, wrapped in everlasting love,
Your tiny hands aren’t counting cost.

So every night, just 'fore the dark,
We sing the two lines we recall.
No grand design. No healing arc.
Just love that won’t let go at all.

Our unfinished lullaby…
Still breathing in the hush, the sigh.
And though the world may never hear,
We know you’re near.
We know you’re near.