by Robert M. Hubbard in memory of his son, Robert Alan Hubbard, who died by suicide September 8, 1985. This poem from his therapeutic writing, ‘A Grief Observed’

No place in the world

How desperately sad
it must be to feel
that there is no place
in all the world
for you. Loneliness unending.

Urgent anger rooted
in black-pit pain,
knowing of no place
in all the world
where you can find refuge.

No one to turn to, no one
to heed your pleas
for acceptance, for
acknowledgement,
for validation and love.

Life is filled with many paths,
with many “less traveled”
by dark figures, lonely souls
who do not find rest
in vessels of clay.

But one path, shrouded in green
and layered with glacial pebbles
that crunch underfoot, lying
betwixt asphalt and ocean,
leads to a place of white headstones,

and overarching trees standing
where the great Atlantic spills
it’s way twice each day into
lazy-shaped pools, feeding
the marsh grass and side-crawling
crab, reflecting green and blue.

Leading the man-boy ahead to
a stark rest, the path winds by
White Rock,
marking the soul-passage
that bears it’s name.

Leaning out, looking down
as if to observe the doings
at it’s feet, the large Black Oak tree,
shivering occasionally in the
raw breeze, sees but will not tell
of the self-sleep executed below.

Gazing beyond an ocean hiding
the lost ships of history;
looking through a blue sky
camouflaging disasters past;
sensing the globe-circling
wind that has touched
pain and accident and death
before sifting the brown hair on
your head, you sit and stare,
unseeing, thinking your thoughts.

“Life is a war” says it all.
Bright eyes, glistening smile,
blade-sharp intellect slicing
through superficial humankind
belies the deep scars,
the clouded insights to the
dark side of life and the decision
to leap toward the Light.

The impulse of death is strong,
impelling,
leaving no choice
but the choice of oblivion.
There is no place
in all the world for you.
No solace, no cave of hiding,
no limelight of success,
no escape into love or care.
No place in all the world
where you feel you belong!

A mystery, the paradox of inverse size:
one ounce of lead giving entry
to Eternity.
A one-way ticket.

You must be certain
of your destination,
and of your desire
not to return to the
sending-off place.

But what of those who are left?

Typical hurt day