Introduction: The background to this is that after twenty years together with my partner I returned home one day after being away for a week on business to find an empty house. My partner of two decades had left without warning. The first three paragraphs I wrote at the time. I started writing it sitting at the local beach watching the waves then late in the evening I returned back to the house. Several months later I sat down to complete this poem. It may not make any sense to some but if a person has lived a similar experience it may. 

 From one to four for naught. (The one is me, the four are my partner and two children with me)

Like glassy lake when I not know

Small problems just like ripples go

And hopes and dreams build up and flow

Emotions drift for I not know

That mighty tide was soon to flow

Then bursting forward a mighty rush

Destroying dreams with one great flush

It burst its banks and crashed on forth

Destroying hope with all its force

And down from deep within my soul

The tears they flow I cannot hold

Composure long...

And how damned blind could I have been

To not have known - to not have seen

It creeping forward with all its force

This mighty gale... And now... She’s off

And here alone with one small thought

That many years are now for naught

All those years all gone. What for?

My son, he enters through the door

To say that all... It is no more

I fall and kneel upon the floor

This crashing sea of pain I feel

I cannot stand and still I kneel

Writing down just how I feel

For that great one that made this earth

Did he know what Sue’s love is worth

To me. I turn around and see my son

And in his eyes, I see his mum

I see how great this mighty pain

Affects us both. Alas in vain

I have this thought.

If I could change this tidal course

Could do it all with mighty force

I'd let her free.

For now the tide it ebbs and flows

Emotions come. Emotion goes

And as the gale, it settles down

My feet are firm upon the ground

Once more

I see the mark the tide has laid

I feel the pain this loss has made

And then I walk along the shore

I find her love it is no more.