The Boy of Not Enough Days
As I stand at the edge of my sanity,
a precipice with hope,
helplessness rises like impassable terrain,
unmoving, mountainous.
And, in the dark hours of the night,
eyes wide open,
senses perceive the void
where my father’s ghost now lives.
His spirit, the one I want to receive –
but fear to admit –
is gone.
He’s where I asked him to be,
hovering over my very premature son,
wired and tubed and fighting for life
in the neon lit nearby neonatal unit.
Watching over the boy of not enough days.
Ben was born at 24 weeks on the 3rd June. Way too early. I wrote this five days after he was born, and not yet three months after I lost my dad very suddenly. I wanted to convey how helpless I felt and how I hoped, (despite the, (arguably?) irrational nature of it) that my father’s spirit was looking over him, like a guardian angel. This version was adapted from the original to make it less ambiguous and emphasise that it was about a premature baby, our Ben. The photo was taken in the NICU when he was about 5 weeks old and still attached to lots of tubes.
2000, then revised 2024.
PUBLISHED in: ‘Fragments of an Unquiet Mind: A Poetry and Artwork Anthology‘. May 2025