13 April 2014

My Friend Bill

Come, my friend, though you be lost
from my sight, walk now and talk with me. 
My mind’s eye sees you and my heart’s 
ear listens to you, as the same sea 
we both once watched caresses the sand 
at the edge of the Bay, while crying gulls
fly deep again into the copper bright horizon, 
to be absorbed like tendrils  of thin smoke 
disappeared into the kindly dark of evening.

Any man’s death, it was said, diminishes me;
but I know the spirit that lives in every good man
will enrich the lives of of all whom it touches.
My friend Bill was indeed a very good man,
a loyal and loving man whose pleasure
it was to build a raft of quiet friendship
upon which we all may safely sit 
until, we too set free, shall fly into those gentle
welcoming shadows and meet with God. 
Naomi