Daily Diary, Day 831:
One of my favorite movies for the holidays is Love, Actually, and I get all weepy in the scenes at the airport with people reuniting. This poem by my father, reminds me of that coming together. Yet the melancholy tone of the poem also matched my mood today because this week saw the death of a cousin, the elderly father of a friend, and the news that my step-mother just had a bad fall last night and broke her femur. Not the way she wanted to spend her 90th birthday, which is next week.
The sad fact is, all these people, and their closest loved ones, live far away from me, so all I can do is send my love and be there on the other end of the phone if anyone needs to talk. Yet, sometimes that is enough.
I decided to go with a more upbeat meaning of the poem for my accompanying picture to end on a happy note. And I think I will suggest we watch Love, Actually this evening!
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
The hurt we feel
in times we are estranged
is equalled by the joy
when we are not.
let this one
be a measuring stick
to mark the bounds of peace
that find us whole.
One bell
to toll delights:
of countless days
in lively ease,
of soul filled nights,
of seasons, years,
and life itself.
We need not look for other wounds
to match each one of these.
This present one will do, to see all joy
writ into the diary of our lives.
If our heights
of truth and beauty
prove this inch-worm pain
not equal to its task,
wait then for time
to mark upon the tally sheet,
"The joy and pain of life
stand each by each."
--Joseph Locke