Moments

Moments come and then they go.
We think they're true and full of hope.
Then we find they aren't meant to be.
And never were.

Faces come with hopeful gaze.
We place our hopes and dream of days.
But we don't really know them.
And never will.

We tell ourselves that it's fine.
There's always more wine.
But we know the bottle's near empty.
And there are no more.

So we search and hope and pray.
With voices that fade more each day.
And we learn our fate face by face.
Until there are no more.

Your mother

Your mother:
Suffered pain, sweat, blood, tears
Endured hopes, terrors, fears.
Wears scars inside and out.
Overcame bouts of longing and doubt.

She gave you your first gift.
The one from which all others flow.
She was your beginning.
The rock to which you clung.

You can't pay her back for all she's endured.
Only be grateful that she did endure.
And love her for that.
And much more besides.

I know these things for
I saw them with my own eyes
and heard them with my own ears.
And I am grateful too.

Birthday Elegy

We spend sixty years chasing, grasping, clawing.
Then we spend thirty - if we're lucky - forty if we're not,
Releasing those things for which we fought so hard.
If wise, we know to lay them down gracefully.
If not, we fight and rage but lay them down all the same.
For it's God's world and it's God's way.
We're all just players in his play.

So how have you found my playing thus far?
Have I said my lines and toed my marks well?
Will you stay and watch my show to the very end?
Or will you lose interest, shuffling out for brighter fare?
I will play the play so long as I have breath.
And the last thing I will lay down dear friend,

Is you.