R.E. Slater - Sadness

Sadness

by R.E. Slater

¹This be the verse you grave for me:

   'Here he lies where he long'd to be;
   'Home is the sailor, home from sea,
   'And the hunter home from the hill.'

My sadness comes upon the wings of  thanksgiving;

Yet it is a heavy sadness which grips me

One which cannot be undone --

Nor should it be undone --

Fallen upon my heart and soul.

Which are it's proper resting place,

   Carried o'er many years past,

   Across many life events fled,

   Both the very good and very bad,

But, on balance, good... but bad too,

In so many important ways to me.

Memories that are now 'Nevermore,'

As the harkey ²poet once said,

Unlike my present precious memories

These older memories rest deeper inside,
   Here is where I miss the old faces,

   their bright eyes,
   their voices and laughter,
   their jocularity, teases and reflections,

   met in somber moments of wisdom and pain --

Of all that we shared together when together

When working farm or field or vegetable garden;

When hunting or travelling together,

Of the family picnics at grandma's nextdoor --

Yea, all, all, all gone --

Nevermore and nevermore and nevermore.

This kind of wistful sadness

Comes from living with those you love.

Not only family but uncles and aunts,
And friends who once became family,

Wandering into our lives, then wandering out....

Of places lived during youth and afterwards,

Places and events which mature us,

Test us, prove us, upon the high tides

And heavy seas sometimes calm and sometimes not.

At once the years of sorrow are completed

But never gone, completed in a strange way

Never to be reclaimed as they were claimed

Living in their moments of dred or charm.

Sadly remembered their irrepeatable natures,

That even before leaving they had already left --

   My grandparents on their farm,

   My long heritage now past with them,

   The wild lands I walked unencumbered,

   Before roads and businesses and commissions.

All now recycled in updated ways of memory,

Irrevocable life stages and events,

Piling one on top of the other, until,
When looking back as an older man,

All the beautiful moments have twinkled out,

Running together likes paints on a canvas,

Beheld their special memories,

...Memories that are no longer.

Sadly, they cannot be rewound,

Nor undone, nor relived, nor prevented,

Nor even held as they once were,
But lie as remembered experiences,
As wonderous beautiful moments flying by,

Of home and family then and now,

Now lying still in the moment, collecting dust,

Once nurturing, energizing, flowing with newness.
   Even so Lord, 'Thank you for the many good moments,
   And 'deliverance from the bad moments' --

   Those which pained me, harmed me, changed me,

   From who I was to who I am today as a

   Patient, if not enduring, survivor of life's

   Many changeable moods and attires.

May the mundane and unremarkable

Never quit our spirits restlessly alive,

For it is in these common moments

Where everlasting life everlastingly abides.

Binding event to event, as the moments fly,

As a series of crescendoing waves upon the ear,

Spilling across the soul and out upon the shoals,

From shoreline to shoreline

Before lifting the sails to ship out again --

   To never-ending encounters, relationships,

   Words, deeds, actions, calamities, traumas, pain...

   Criss-crossing life's flowing seas beautiful and hard.

'Yea, Lord, help us to become good sailors,

Masters who sail life's many uneven, flowing tides,

Learning to steer fair or foul towards home;

To become hunters of the hills we know and love,

Building the kind of home we yearn, need and know.

   To be true in our hearts as we know

   Our hearts to be true --

   Caretakes of those we meet, however short,

   Or long, mentoring future sailors of the seas

   Or hunters crossing hills and dales

   To not weary the task nor succumb

   Our frail hearts its griefs and sorrows.'

Amen and Amen and Amen

R.E. Slater
July 2, 2023

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

*Two References:

1Under the wide and starry sky,

    Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

    And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

    'Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

    And the hunter home from the hill.'

- Requiem, by Robert Louis Stevenson

2Edgar Allen Poe, 'The Raven"