I've finished life's chores assigned to me,
So put me on a boat headed out to sea.
Please send along my fishing pole
For I've been invited to the fishin' hole.
Where every day is a day to fish,
To fill your heart with every wish.
Don't worry, or feel sad for me,
I'm fishin' with the Master of the sea.
......
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
......
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain
......
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
......
I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers,
But they are troops who fade, not flowers
For poets' tearful fooling:
......
A tiny kitchen
A broken gate
A single bed
And a best mate.
Cups of tea
In doughnut-shaped mugs
That same blue blanket
Plenty of hugs.
Uncut grass
Carpet-less floor
......
I'm often asked by friends afar
What was that bright and shining star
That led me to this place of joy
To truly savor this, my rather special toy.
Was it the palm trees swaying in the breeze,
The cheeky Pelicans skimming waves with ease,
Florida's sun beaming brightly morn to dusk,
No need of taking weather Gods to task.
......
I wish it had happened at a better time...
Maybe it would have gone in a better direction, maybe not.
The yellow of the bus, the brown of the sand, and the blue of the water & sky,
All hold memories of moments
I never knew would end so soon...
The classroom, full of chairs and tables where we sat every day,
hold memories I never knew would exist one day...
Walking into that place every day, knowing it's not the same anymore, is hard.
All those memories keep coming back in a flash.
......
How much do you love me?
My darling, my love
Cuz lately, you've been
all that I think of
How much do you love me?
All the way to the stars?
And all the way down,
to the bottom of your heart?
......
Tucked away in the corner,
in the slowed-down dead of night,
the lovers cuddle closer
away from any light
His arms wrapped round her waist
so steady and so slow
The embrace is filled with so much love
Love that only these two know
......