by Brian Lambie

Created on: May 04, 2008

(With apologies to H.W.Longfellow)

Our Mother, you always walked with God,
Now you lie in earth's last embrace,
In earth's last sweet embrace, and
Having shed your old clothes
(they lasted so long
Few so long lasting, patching and darning,
Through use and abuse,
Through birth of your children,
Through deaths of loved ones
Parents before you
Beloved brother
Handsome young brother,

Dashing young sailor
Hero twice over
Taken by U-boat
Taken too early,
Just 23 summers.
Especially bitter
To lose a young brother
And still your clothes lasted
Although somewhat patched
Many kinds cleaned
Through wartime and peacetime,
Through the comings of next ones,
The next generation,
And the next generation.
The death of your husband,
Your rock, your best loved,
Your partner of decades,
Of more than six decades,
Gone in his time,
Yet sometimes returning,
As if to say: ' My Love,
' do not forget me.
' I shall be waiting
' waiting for you.'
And still the old clothes
Given only at birth,
Given only by God,
Given by the soul maker.
Perfect they seemed
As an infant gamboling,
As an infant playing,
Perfect were they .
In the middle of life,
Youth not quite faded,
They still adorned
The body beneath,
But gradually, gradually,
Time passing slowly
Then rapidly, rapidly
Only too rapidly,
Everything changing,
Passing away.
Your children are ageing,
Relentlessly ageing and
Those clothes you were given ,
Given by God,
Become tighter and tighter
But still you must wear them
To the last fleeting second,
As you pray for release).

* *

Mother
We found you, still warm,
With the warmth of these garments,
Face faintly smiling
This garb no more needed, these garments of skin.
All our earthlives
we wear this same garment
As our flesh grows through
Childhood,
Through the trials of experience
To the failing of dotage
And this garb we were given
Grows tighter and tighter,
Until one day we manage
To shrug it off, leave it,
This fount of discomfort,
This burden of skin.

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