For Mary Helen

Do Not Cling To the Past

All Nature is too beautiful this year.

It is as if her soul remaining blessed

Before its last ascent this earthly sphere

That shall no longer feel upon its breast

Her joyous tread though still the peace descends;

But O the heart can hardly hold this day

Whose glory all our human grief suspends,

For God in darkness ever lights our way.

I try to capture on transparencies

Colours that transcend the imaged eye

With subtleties that thrill and moods that ease

The pain that lingers long when loved ones die.

We must not lie in sorrow's arms too long.

I hear a voice: "Do not cling to the past,

Keep still within the one beloved's song

And know your souls shall meet again at last,

For He who whispers softly through the rain

And faintly speaks to us within the stone

Shall lift in time the burden of our pain

When we shall offer all to Him alone,

Our sadness and our joy, withholding none

Of those dark thoughts we think are solely ours

And actions mean and small that hide the sun

Of truth behind the heavy fortress towers

We build within our hearts to hide awhile

From those beatitudes too bright to face

And think we can by childish stealth and guile

Escape from His intolerable embrace."