The Voice

I never saw him.

Not his hands,
not the shape of his face in ordinary light.

Only the voice.

It came through the small speaker at night
clear and patient
like moonlight crossing water.

I listened often.

There was something steady in it,
a calm that suggested a life
properly arranged.

Then the news arrived.

For three years he had been ill.
Quietly.
While we went on imagining
a different life for him.

Now he is gone.
Forty-five.

Two daughters left behind
with the unfinished sentences of a father.

I think about how easily we mistake
a voice for a whole person.

Sound travels far.
It survives distances.

A man can already be close to the end
while his voice continues outward
untroubled.

Perhaps this is why belief comes so easily.

We hear something beautiful
and imagine a source that must be strong
and permanent.

But the source is fragile.

The body fails.
The voice fades.

And what remains is only memory
repeating the sound
inside the mind.

Still, sometimes at night
I hear that calm tone again

and for a moment
I almost believe

that whatever spoke through him
has not entirely vanished.