Graveside

The Coin

Into my heart’s treasury 

I slipped a coin

That time cannot take

Nor thief purloin, 

Oh, better than the minting 

Of a gold-crowned king

Is the safe-kept memory 

Of a lovely thing. 

(Sara Teasdale, from Silver Pennies)

Only One Mother 

Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky, 

Hundreds of shells on the shore together, 

Hundreds of birds that go singing by, 

Hundreds of lambs in the sunny weather.

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,

Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,

Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn, 

But only one mother the wide world over. 

(George Cooper)

Janis

Probably the most important of her many gifts to me was one of her earliest. We twins would sit on her lap and she would read Mother Goose, Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, and many others. Some of the verses still rattle in my memory seventy years later more clearly than whatever happened last week.  

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea 

In a beautiful pea-green boat, 

They took some honey, and plenty of money, 

Wrapped up in a five-pound note. 

The Owl looked up to the stars above, 

And sang to a small guitar, 

"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, 

What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! 

What a beautiful Pussy you are!"  

(Edward Lear)

There were illustrations in the books but looking at them wasn't the point; it was listening to her giving the written word a voice. That reading could be an expression of a mother's love shaped my life and also those of my siblings. 

(At the graveside, my sisters spontaneously joined me in reciting the entire poem from memory.)

James

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

(Mary Elizabeth Frye)

Barbara