How often have I read a verse
then tried to write a line?
As if, through some divine reverse,
the poem, it could be mine.

But, read too many other books,
I've heard them say I do.
My mind and pen behave as crooks.
I just feel the same way, too.

In park I sat upon a rock,
Ahead, a trail lay.
I calmly sat and pondered there
Until the sky turned grey!
And in a flash the moon came up,
The rain began to pour.
I stood and ran to nearby trees,
My fear went to the core.
The world shook and morphed and bent,
My vision went askew,
And as the wind began to blow,
I knew not what to do.
Then in a purple puff of smoke
A man came from the sky,
He waved his hand and gave me wings!
And I began to fly.
I beat my wings against the rain,
Through stormy, darkened skies,
When all at once a thunderbolt
Struck out my painful cries.
Falling fast down to the earth
I readied for the shock,
But when I hit I looked around:
I sat upon a rock.
Ahead, a trail still there lay,
Just as it always had,
The sky was blue, the trees were green,
I hardly could be mad.
And so I settled down to think
On all that was my dream,
For often all the dreams I have
Will show a simple theme.
And so I calmly sat and thought
As daytime burned away,
Before I knew it, in a flash,
The sky had turned to grey!

A hundred people, having known our girl,
who knew her love, and loved her in return,
came to her funeral, and there were others,
too distant, too fragile,
or too old to understand,
who would have come as well.
You were not with us, families and friends,
to see her coffin go stately to the fire;
you were not there to see us spread her ashes
on hillside and seashore, say a last goodbye.
But you, who never knew of her in life,
you also wept when you heard of her sudden death
from haemorrhage in the brain,
aged thirty-six and pregnant,
as if the facts,
the words alone, were tragic. You were touched
by the death of one whom you had never known.
You shared our loss.