i got this wonderful poem from our darling kate last night when  I put
out my plea for poetry.  She said I can use it as I see fit.  It is
going to go into the program for my Mom's funeral but i think, after
reading Becky's post and sitting her crying about  the wonder of this
tenuous thing called life, that I would post it for all of us as well-

Unseen Ripples  by Kate Kaprosy

. . . and when at dusk,
the weary sun splashes
silently into the ocean,
and when its splash thrusts
invisible ripples to the shore,
there is no doubt that it existed
for those whose surfaces
it warmed.

And so it is; shall always be--
that now, this same sun
warms new depths
where splashes go unheard;
and soon, it warms the places
where its ripples are felt,
though are still unseen.

"But, where did the sun go?",
its small grandchildren ask.  And,
one of them wriggles his feet
deeply into the beach sand;
giggles, when the warm grains
cling to his miniature toes.
"The sun is in the sand!",
he tells the others.  "It's still
hugging me!  It's hugging my feet!"

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And this one's for all of those people who have loved long and well and
who have bid their partner goodbye-

They Sit Together on the Porch  by Wendell Berry

They sit together on the porch, the dark
Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.
Their supper done with, they have washed and dried
The dishes--only two plates now, two glasses,
Two knives, two forks, two spoons--small work for two.
She sits with her hands folded in her lap,
At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,
And when they speak at last it is to say
What each one knows the other knows. They have
One mind between them, now, that finally
For all its knowing will not exactly know
Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding
Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.