In Memory

They went before their turn,
Taken by a wave,
By its ugly churn;
A parting never was from too far
In a grave or a funeral pyre;
The moment that was,
Dark and grim,
When life was eclipsed
And death reigned supreme.

It was not long before
They would
Hear the birds sing,
Like you and I,
With a sip in the morning.
They would
Roam about the garden,
Like bees,
With the hum of a lovely tune.

A grandpa wanted
To see a little more of light;
A mom had
To make her little ones bright;
Scaling the mountains
Was for what a son
Was through the grind;
Crossing the oceans
Was what a daughter had in mind.
Dream in their eyes
And the hope of a new dawn;
All gone
Unseen, unsung,
Only mourned in a distance.

This world, this earth,
This cradle of life;
It sustains;
Also it kills;
Unjust and just,
Unsafe and safe,
Ugly and beautiful
It has twists and turns
In its tale.
Its army was let loose,
They proved too tough to quell;
Mask, sanitizer
Could not save them
From this hell.
Doctors, nurses among them
Heroes of the time
Went down fighting this battle.

We feel their presence
In the songs they had sung
In the dance their feet had sprung
In the flowers they had helped bloom
In every little path
They had trodden
To make our lives sublime
We remember them
In the starry nights
In love,
In tears,
Wishing them back again.