I received this in e-mail just this morning.  The submitting author mentioned two things about it in her e-mail...That this is not the first thing she has written but that it was the first thing she wanted others to read...and that said that she wrote this one night after visiting poetheart.com through a link from "A Lady's Place" website.  I am very honored to post this on my website.  -poetheart 12/03/00

                "I don't know if it can be considered a poem but it comes from my heart."
                                                     - Belinda Bennett-Hartmann

I awake, startled
My son would rattle
his keys outside my door
at 5 a.m. when he came
home from the late shift.
"Oh, you're awake" he would
say, smiling.
It was 8 a.m. He was
not home. No rattle of
his keys.

Maybe he had stopped to
play his early morning
game of Nintendo with
his co-worker,
He had done this before.
There! a knock. He has
forgotten his keys.

I open the door smiling,
an unfamiliar face, filled
with sadness, in a
trooper uniform greets me
"May I speak to you inside?"
I listen to the words
that tear out my heart, my soul,
my mind still waiting to hear
the rattle of those keys.

It has been 6 years.
Many days have come
and gone,
moves and changes,
My separation, a new
grandson, another one
on the way.
A terminal illness which
makes my days shorter.
But every Dec. 5 like
clockwork..
I awake, startled,
listening, for the rattle
of Robbys keys.

by Belinda Bennett-Hartmann

go back