Father and Friend

Father and friend I mourn you not.

Through all the tribulations of your days

Your love held close essential things and taught

Eternal values found in humble ways.

In the stormy discourse of the passing years,

Compromise replaced love's amplitude,

In a marriage fraught with bitterness and tears

Uneasy truce a frail and thin veneer.

Though all my heart was wedded to your fate

And suffered more the more your distanced lives

And angered words did finally alienate

The unity your marriage vows had sought.

Of the anger and its cause I hold no key

For sudden anger also rose in me,

Unbidden guest but sanctioned by my fears.

Now in the light of sixty years I see

That underlying all the painful tears

A love still stood when all I saw was fall

And ruin of a broken family

And years of sadness in my childhood mind's recall.

There came the day of my mother's passing on,

She with whom I duelled defending you;

On her deathbed I saw a miraculous thing

As the cancer and the pain raced through.

There are moments in our lives that set the lie

To all we think and believe we know as real

And on that night I met an ancient soul

Cloaked in the garb of a wasted form reveal

Her inner Self as mother and as wife,

And all our long-held attitudes erased

In a movement swifter than our thoughts

When love drew close and all my doubts effaced.

Through suffocating throes and numbing haze

Of drugs that stilled the pain but brought no hope

Her ravaged frame unable now to move,

She slipped from the failing envelope.

Yet one more time she looked at me in peace

And ever will I honour her sacred name

And ever recall the hour of her death

And the moment of her final breath.

For then miraculously she turned her head

To face you father standing by her side

And somehow smiled a smile that deified

Your marriage and your term of life on earth.

A smile so warm, so filled with joy that I

In wonder, humbled by such deeps of love

Stood silent by as she so peacefully

Released the soul that upward swiftly fled.

But as she left, hers sisters now in tears,

She blessed again our time-bound lives on earth.

For as she rose such silence filled our ears

And a fragrance unknown on earth infused the room

And stilled all thought to lift us into light.

Neither the rose nor the jasmine's haunting air

Could match that scent of the psychic being's prayer,

Its benediction calming our grieving souls.

And now my warrior friend you too are gone

From pain and the crushing weight of days.

But as I slowly see within I find

A joy that broke the bounds of limiting mind,

A closeness undetered by death and time,

Lifting us above our worldly fears

Wiping from eyes the stain of sorrow's tears

And through all future births a love divine.

Remembrance of my childhood's scented days,

The fruiting vines, the laden cherry tree

The flowers endless song to sunlight's rays

The forest grasses soft as children's cheeks.

The magic sound of rivulets and streams

The carol of birds, chant of the soothing winds,

And the wonder-world of childhood's dreams

All by your beneficence made live.

I wander through the corridors of Time

On my lips a prayer of gratitude

For all the sumptuous gifts your hand bestowed,

Lover of life, embracer of things divine.

Where is loss when your gifts outlast the years?

What grief of the heart, what sadness could endure

The light of love, the treasure now secure,

In the easy benediction of the days.

Could time erase from memory your laugh,

Expunge from my heart your joy in simple things,

The scent of earth, the radiant light of days

And the harvest of your hands a gift for kings.

How moved you were by the slow descending sun

Arm round me weeping quietly

For a beauty passed and a glory still to come,

The richness of it all, the harmony

Of godhead's breath upon our human lives.

You left not too soon but in your time and way,

You chose the final hour from your soul,

Declining support to live another day.

The earth you cherished, nurtured with your love

Receives you now a friend and honoured guest

Who tilled the fields of youth and age with grace,

Yet only your broken frame is laid to rest.

The garden of your days lies empty now,

Awaiting in silence the strong determined hand

That with such endless joy did till and plough

Exulting ever in the bounteous land.

The soil you tended now has lost some joy,

Asleep in winter's dreams of cloudless skies

When spring will bless the earth with warming hands

And from this day remembered there shall rise

A prayer for the deep perfection of your soul

In flight to its resting place among the stars,

To move decisively towards your goal,

Your spirit's truth, your strong and singular path.