*where Have You Gone, My Brother? Poem by Lillian Susan Thomas

Where have you gone, my brother?
And how do I reach you, Christopher?
I call your name to the wind,
I hear it echo over highway miles,
Over telephone wires.
I sprinkle it like ashes
On the waves of the Gulf,
Hoping it will carry the message of our concerns
To you on lapping beaches if you be there
Or offshore platforms or ships at sea
Where you may be working.

If I could send a signal out to your heart
What code could it read?
And would you answer me?
Should I beacon you from lighthouses?
Put it in Morse Code?
Or semaphore the message
To flag down your vagabond soul
Wherever it wanders in the wide world?

You have dropped like a stone in the deep.
If only the circles that had gone out
From where you fell were recorded in time's memory
Or like the solid ground had kept your footprints,
Then I would know where to start looking.

You have tried to erase yourself from the family,
But big boisterous clan that we are,
You are too much a part of us,
You are woven into the fabric of the Georges.
You may think you are
The dark strand of a black sheep,
But no more than I.
Anyway, they need us for contrast.

You are in the family photo album
On every page with that wild shock of red hair
Surprising anyone outside the family.
When you were young we thought that hair magical -
The chubby redhead in the cowboy hat
Sitting astride the hand-me-down trike,
Or on the visiting pony with your big brother
Behind you in the saddle.
And your temper then could blanch your face
Then turn it a matching crimson.
Yet we were not afraid.

But now your absence has frightened us all.
The reporter in me wants to unearth you
From your hiding place.
I don't care what shape I will find you in.
Grizzled with beard
Or shaven with resolve -
Success or failure matters not -
We only want you back
Among us with your smile
Safely hanging lop-sided on your mouth,
Hooking our hearts with your humor.

If you can't make it back under your own steam,
Then if the legend you were named for
Cannot carry you back to us across the stormy seas,
Then call and I will send you airfare or a bus ticket,
Just return to us please, brother, we need you here.