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Uploaded February 2016 (3 poems) Click for Readings
Mary
A poignant poem about loss and forgiveness
My cousin and I met
and spoke for the first time when I was nearing fifty and she a decade older for her parents had emigrated to America before I was born. Her daughter had died in a car accident when only nineteen and while I knew what had happened the pain passed me by for sadly the family were names to me then and little more. But on a visit with her husband to our home in Scotland our eyes met across the table and tears came into mine as she told my wife and me about the pain of losing Mary those few years before. For three days, she said, she could barely move from where she sat but on the third day she woke with the words of the psalmist* in her mind 'This is the day that the Lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it'. The words gave her comfort and when we met she could talk freely of Mary while her husband on that stay little mentioned her name but kept a picture of her always in his wallet and they were together when showing us her grave on a reciprocal visit. After the accident they had found strength and been given grace to forgive the boy who had carelessly lost control and crashed while chauffeuring Mary and some other friends home from a party for they decided against seeking legal redress after he came to them with his parents and painfully apologised. This story has a sequel for one of the boy's parents on a flight with an acquaintance of my cousin and her husband said movingly "They gave my son back his life". * psalm 118:24 |
Parting
A reflection on the mystery of life and death
Shall we part to see no more
At the ending of their day Those we love and we adore When death holds them in its sway? Some have died enshrined in years With a sense of life complete, Those too young to know its tears Still as infants shall we greet? I expect to know some way Those I've loved and now have lost, In what form I cannot say 'Til the threshold I have crossed. Mystery enshrouds life now Deep the depths we scarce have known, Mystery more must thus endow Things known to God and God alone. |
Rising to the Occasion
'The dear dead departed had joined them once more'
A funeral director my father once knew
Told him this story and swore it was true 'And I fully believed him', he afterwards said, 'For strange things happen in our family trade'. I'll give you a moment to picture the scene Where some days before a death there had been In a small country town and with funeral now near Acquaintance all gathered for the requisite tear In the house where the corpse in the parlour was laid And the widow was fulsome in the grief she displayed. On the day before the deceased was interned A couple of jokers in the Irish town learned They could ask in private the body to view For respects to pay the acquaintance they knew And alone with the corpse a plan there was laid To bring to fruition the story foresaid. The wake that evening was alive in full swing For to sorrow or joy the Irish can bring A sense of fulfilment distinctly their own And a chance of free liquor will seldom disown Although Rabbie Burns might discredit the claim And say that the Scots put the Irish to shame. As midnight approached the noise faded away And they started a hymn to bring in the day When finally the deceased would be laid to his rest And this was the time that the jokers judged best As from outside the window they with caution surveyed The solemnity now that the mourners displayed. A string to each of his wrists they had tied That led out the window to where they did hide And as hymn neared its climax and final amen The corpse seemed determined to join the refrain And the air he exhaled made a most mournful sound As he rose in the coffin and they swore looked around. The pair in the darkness in merriment viewed The panic and chaos inside that ensued And for years thereafter those present all swore That the dear dead departed had joined them once more And some even insisted the funeral next day Had been for some stranger who had just passed away. As for our merry friends hugging in glee And wishing the uproar forever to see If video recording invented had been Thousands on utube would have witnessed the scene. |