I wanna tell you somethin'

All shadows in this world which here night our light
live in a garden growing ever more bright
and when death in this world causes us to decay
the queen light to them will at once be displayed

Their bodies out of the ground once old and abused
will wink out the instant queenlight beauty's infused
through ground we will travel, bodies old up through the terf
while our shadows are born out of wombs with queen's worth

Brother can you remember our garden world home
where queen light went through us wherever we'd roam?
Hold fast to that memory with no fear in your heart
for we'll go there again when this world we shall part.

22 Aldeah

For Brian

Silently watching tobacco bowls glowing
warmly we grasp the pace of life slowing
speaking of fathers and the souls we've been showing
the ways which the church and your baby's been growing

finding substantive answers for our hungry souls' why's
in reading of rivers and tying on flies
and of polar bear dreefees of miniature size
we'll leave here the lighter and feeling more wise.

a moment of peace grants our eyes a new view
to how loss and silence are similarly used
to teach use of the gifts with which we've been imbued
and draw our eyes to the one who will carry us through

though now the nights on the porch seem all none to many
we'll trust we were also not given too few
we'll bless the great giver for granting us any
and with mixed joy in our hearts bid each other adieu.

Possibly my new favorite poem...

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling