Thursday, May 23, 2013

To Amy

To Amy may this little rhyme
Arrive in good, propitious time
To say we're sure our candidate
Will garner her certificate
By stalwartly defending what
Her thesis sanctions or does not
And, with its reasoning innate,
Delivers our licentiate

Homecoming

We brought you home to us from hospital
In hope to have some time, however short,
To say goodbye with heartfelt words of love -
But swiftly did those hours we'd fancied days
Elapse before the waning of that link
Which kept communication possible
Transpired, to be succeeded by a sleep
In which no pain afflicts the slumbering soul
So easefully allowed to near its end.
The waiting and the hoping are so hard
To undergo before their term expires.

Suffer no more

We sit beside you through the night
With hope you sleep in peace.
We cannot know if you feel fright -
Please bless us and release
That vital hold which keeps you here
Long past the time to go.
Oh, listen to our pleas, My Dear,
And cease to linger so.
You will not thus abandon us,
Nor shall we lose you whole -
Let go the world, renounce its fuss,
Be gentle on your soul.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Farewell with gratitude

Farewell, Dear Heart, who came into my life
As daughter, sister, mother, peerless wife,
And now depart, yet always shall remain
Companion tireless, source of untold gain.

The journeys of our wedded life forged ways
To let remembrance wake their vibrant days.
Though we no more shall fondly walk together,
What once we shared shall stay intact forever.

You shall not go in darkness from our side,
The light you brought us ever will abide.
So as you take your leave to where toils cease
Our mourning and our grief will bring us peace.



Our last celebration

The time of transformation has arrived
As we, in grieving, turn our hearts to you
And hold ourselves in readiness to meet
The last injunctions of your cherished will.

Fire shall have rendered us your ash to take
In company to where your dear hills rise,
And on the winding paths you loved to roam
You shall be scattered joyfully at home.



Tribute

A last devoted tribute now we pay
To one who loved far more than words can say.
There is an absence in the world we know
But one dear presence that will never go
From out our hearts or from this chosen wood
Where now we leave your ashes as we should.


Valediction

One verse the more - the last - to write
To those who tarry in the light:
We all must venture into night -
Keep, then, a caring outlook bright!


Now and forever

Those final days are gone, those days we struggled to endure,
And with their passing we regain our picture of you whole.
The time through which we grieve and mourn will in its course ensure
We find the strength to let you go, yet treasure your dear soul.

It needs to be said

With pulsing puffs between the lips that travel to the ear
We tell our loved ones they are loved, we tell them they are dear.
How often we should use our tongue to motivate the air -
That noble gas, our messenger - to say how much we care,
To say there is a place apart forever in our heart
From out the depth of which each day our words of love depart
To reach the destination where  an ear is wide awake
To hear those living breaths announce affection for its sake.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

The maintenance of wing

There is a need in a machine which calls
For others to ensure it does as bid.
On breakdown, it inevitably falls
To them to find out where the faults are hid
They put them right, though leaving still one thing
That each machine requires to be of use -
And this recalls the maintenance of wing,
Which all birds must perform, without excuse.

The owl who hunts does not do so unless
She keeps her wings fine-tuned at flying pitch -
An irksome burr the more, a preening less
Is greater far than any minor glitch,
For it may mean the losing of a prey,
Or cause control to falter in the air,
Spelling the end of peerless mastery,
Bringing her crashing down near danger's lair.

The vital toil the owl performs each day
Cannot be done by proxy for her sake.
Her maintenance of wing points us the way
That brute machines necessitate we take.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Little Miss "Not Right"

Grave Ellie in her clever way
Is watching, through the length of day,
Her Mummy's each and every move
To see just where she must improve,
So when she spots a blatant error -
Why, then, our little toddling terror
Announces in her sternest voice
Rejection of an ill-made choice.

The fun of this begins to pall
For Mummy, who's on constant call
And turns to tell her daughter dear
That she no longer wants to hear -
As she has heard for far too long -
How everything she does is wrong.

Then comes at once the answer bright:
"But, MummyDearest, you're not right!"