Listmates,
After this I'll try to be quiet for awhile. "Ha - fat chance of that!" my wife would say. We have several red and yellow tulips in our front yard next to the house. I was thinking about how beautiful they are and then I remembered how that the petals of some flowers fold up at night and then open again in the morning to receive the warmth from the sun. It hit me - hope this makes sense - that our loved ones are like those flowers. I remember what a beautiful person my mother was when we were growing up. (She had to be, after all she produced me, and even into my adult years.) :-D She was warm and friendly and open to others. She was like those beautiful flowers. But now in her twilight, her petals are folding. I was led to write this poem this morning.
Jerry

Means that night is almost here.
The day has turned to twilight;
And the sun soon disappears.
The flowers sleep in silence
As they wait for morning's light.
They seem to be at peace
As they rest throughout the night.
With a growing sense of joy,
The dawn begins to break.
The birds begin to sing,
And the flowers, they awake.
As the sun comes up to touch them
With its rays of blessed warmth.
We watch their petals open,
And reach out with open arms,
The flowers are our loved ones,
Whose blossoms we have shared,
They clothed and fed and taught us,
They showed us that they cared.
And all too suddenly it seems,
They're in the twilight of their years.
As we watch their petals folding,
We can't hold back the tears.
But the story is not over,
They're only resting for awhile,
And when the dawn arrives,
They'll awaken with a smile.
The folding of the petals
Is not the end, oh no.
It's just another step
On the journey we must go.

© 2000, Jerry Ham
e-mail Jerry.Ham@werner-saumweber.de