When rain my eyes…

‘Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.’
JAMES THURBER, Credos and Curios Harper & Row 1962

On looking back along the course the year has taken
Immediacy brings a sense of such great sorrow and pain
Yet, where at first my thoughts were steeped in anger
I’m calmer now, reluctant to travel that sorry path again.
For though it’s true I’ll never yet more see her face
She is in my heart and helps to stay my grief
I look back now at all the things in life we shared
Her life so very full of goodness and self-belief.

So with her in my heart I’m feeling rather brave
For she would brook no choice to sit things out
Adventure was a watchword that I think drove her
And family of course, that first, there was no doubt.
Thus when I’m huddled down and my eyes begin to rain
My heart feels crushed to the smallest ravaged pieces
I think of her throughout her life and am restored
And once again my mind is smoothed of creases.

We take our personal journey and do with it as we will
And help along the way can sometimes be expected
For if there’s none perhaps our route is far too wayward
We should get on track and then we’d be accepted.
Yet those who cannot bring themselves to care
Are still our brothers in this strange odyssey
Thus we should wish them well as we move along our way
And convince ourselves the crazy ones are never you or me.