Welcome to Four Lines! I have a goal I would like to write at least four lines of poetry or a haiku every day for the rest of my life. I'm excited about this challenge! Also, along with my daily poem, I will be reading at least four lines of another author's poetry. I'll try to include that here also. So I'm thinking - how difficult can it be to read and then write one poem a day? We will see! - Claudia
All poems on this blog, unless noted, are written by Claudia Callaghan.
© 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Claudia Callaghan
Used only with permission. Please feel free to join Four Lines and request permission.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Your father has died.  What does that mean?
The paradox of paradoxes is visiting.
Wear black hats to black shoes,
weep on shoulders, share the blues,
revisit memories with the sad news,
solemn traditions assigned on your families behalf,
walk through the graveyard, read the epitaph.

Your father has died.  What does that mean?
The paradox of paradoxes is visiting.
Wear red and yellow, add in some green.
love and feel loving, hug Aunt Bernadine,
enjoy poignant music, your dad's favorite song,
smell all the flowers, laughing's not wrong,
cry and smile and cry all day long.

A spiritual note on the side,
it is for you to decide.
Teacher Tolle says we are
born to be conscious
to die and stay conscious.

Your father has died.  What does that mean?
The paradox of paradoxes is just visiting,
tapping your shoulder, whispering in your heart.
Your father's not dead!....you're never apart.
He lives and through death survives.
My friend, that is what it means.


Following poem XXVII by Emily Dickinson
(in it's entirety because I love this poem)

Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 't is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than a day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

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