Time For Broken Things To Mend

I watch her hobbling up the long high hill

That rises from the lake to reach my door,

Injured and in pain advancing still

To greet me as she's often done before,

My mallard friend who lives from man apart

Yet chooses to acknowledge me as friend

She of the crippled foot and I the heart

Both needing time for broken things to mend.

Fall has come and russets tint the sky

The mauve of asters, bright chrysanthemums

Sparkle as the fleeting grasses die.

This welcome chill invades the limbs and numbs

The flesh and numbing too the heart,

But I live on hoping yet to heal

The fractured soul before I must depart

This earthly soil on whose soft breast I kneel.

We must bear the harsh iniquity of death

And know that in our dark resides a light,

To strive until the final gasping breath

Escapes the heavy burden of the night

As we take flight to rest in other spheres

And all our squandered energies replace,

Shed the gross accumulate of years

And find again the one beloved face.