A Traded Line

Today is Poetry Friday, hosted by our Pretty Witty Ditty Lady, Michelle at Today's Little Ditty.

This year my mother's been gone for 14 years, my dad for 16.  They both died in September, so it is a sobering time. Add to it that my father's funeral was on 9/11/01.  We watched the planes as we finished dressing to go to the funeral, all the while wondering if we were safe leaving the house...or safe staying... then deciding it didn't matter.  The world was closed down that day, but I had to keep going.

Then two years later, on September 14, Mom died.  Her funeral was on 9/18/03, the day Washington, DC, was shut down for Hurricane Isabel.  My siblings and I joked about how our parents' deaths were just too much for our country to handle...everything went to pieces when they died.

Every September since 2001 there have been such mixed emotions.  Our wedding anniversary (45 this year) is September 9th.  And of course, it's also the first two weeks of school starting up.  I think it's always good to get all the special days in in a couple weeks of each other if you can arrange it!  Everything is so mixed then, there's no clear, single emotion.  I'm sure that must be good for you in some crazy way.

That is all said as background to the poem today.  When lines were offered for trade, by Linda Mitchell a few weeks ago, I left a line from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm: "full of sparkles the livelong day", and I nabbed "I met Glory after a long day and one long night."... Actually, it picked me.  I didn't use it as an opening line - it's in the middle.  So using the poetic license I hold to do such things, I used it that way.  I can't be arrested. 

So here it is - most of it - it's missing a few stanzas that I have on hold, not sure if I want them.  I'm also not sure of the order of the last three stanzas, but I guess I can switch them some other time.  I was not going to post this, but felt the need to do something with it, so here it is, in honor of Mom:

Meeting Glory

We, her grown up children,
Together all around her,
Talked of times, and laughed a lot
To lovingly surround her.

Hours passed and still we sat
Engaged in reminiscing,
A glorious day till evening came
Then one by one dismissing;

She waved us to our roads back home
With her promise of tomorrow,
But there was no more time to spend
And no more time to borrow.

She waved herself on down the road,
Declaring "I met Glory!"
After a long day and one long night,
She'd started her new story.

No more our mother’s hand to hold,
No more a long, dark night;
Glory holds her hand instead,
And blessedly in Light.

She’d vowed not to be carried
Up the stairs again to church;
True to her word, that Sunday morn
She watched from Glory’s perch.


By Donna JT Smith
July 28, 2017 revised Aug. 15, 2017