So he is gone
And he sighed as he went
And you have no right
To assume what that sigh
Might have meant,
What it means
To those who were closer
Who knew more than you
In touch only rarely
Yet you remember
Proof each December
Of a life that he lived
To the full.
And do you console yourself
Writing these lines
To the tick of a clock
And the drip of a tap
Now dropping faster
Now it is evening -
Suddenly it is evening -
And think with regret
You did not meet oftener
In the business of life,
Of the value of pain
As the tap drips again
And again?
Best to remember
The life that he lived
And what will reside
In the minds that remain
As we see by and by
On pools of rain water
More autumn leaves lie.
And, too, to remember
He went in a cloud
Blown on the wind
Blown out to sea
Not as leaves on a pool
But ever preferring
To move and not be.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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