Spring Song

The fields and forest call to me

I need to run and play

So many months and years have passed

Since I have been away.

The scent of new mown hay I need,

the color of ripening wheat,

the purple, green and blue of mountains

 rising strong and sweet,

the sight of newborn calves curled up,

in meadows in the spring,

the skylarks singing perched on fences—I know why they sing!

The trees that whisper in the breeze

beside a chattering brook,

an eagle soaring in the sky—I need to run and look!

Whether a full moon rising in a starry night,

or the fireball setting, shedding golden light,

God’s creation calls to me,

Oh! Let me run and see!

~Kathie Adams Brown (May 8, 1994)

• NaPoWriMo 2014

A Valediction for Trudy

Trudy 2008

Even now I see your face

Faded blue eyes shining with Joy

As you show me the oriole on your feeder.

Long ago you nurtured

-this bird love in my heart,

--this God love in my heart,

--this love for all of nature.

I remember the last time I saw you,

Shrunken and gnome-like

With the pink, leathery skin of old age,

Yet eyes that still shone like a child’s.

Oh how I loved you, and love you still.

I think of you now like a constant thing,

Like birds, and God’s Love.

I knew the last time I saw you

It would be our last good-bye,

You were 102 then—time had run out on you.

I hugged you tight while tears

streamed down my face in a flood.

I could tell I was but a faded memory

In your aged mind,

But, you still loved me,

 you still loved God,

and you still loved the birds.

I wanted to hold you so tight

as if my love could keep you

from the inevitable.

How is it that you are gone from this life,

Yet still so alive in my heart?

In the birds I see everyday

—I  see you,

—I see Love.

If parting is such sweet sorrow,

Then remembering is sweeter still,

And saying Good-bye is but a brief moment in time.

~For Trudy Smith (read more here)

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 6, 2013)

NaPoWriMo2013 Day 6 Prompt: Valediction