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THE OLD, OLD BIBLE
I found an old, old Bible
From two hundred years ago.
I read those old familiar words
From a time I didn't know.
Pressed between the pages
Was a lock of auburn hair
And a rose from some occasion
Of happy times or of despair.
Notes and prayers were tucked away,
With clipped ads for things to buy.
A page handwritten carefully
Of family members that had died.
Did some mother's trembling hands
Write a name upon this page
As teardrops trickled from her eyes
And left these stains time can't erase?
Or did a father write the name
Of his brave and only son
Who died in a distant battlefield
For some freedom we have won?
Did a mother die in childbirth
Or did a father die from plague?
I guess some family members
Died simply from old age.
The names were scrolled with pen and ink,
Perhaps by candlelight,
While heavy hearts... reminisced
Of days, and years, and life.
I read the Bible scriptures
And I wrote a little prayer
For their family and for mine,
For the pain we somehow share.
I cut a lock of my own hair
And I clipped an ad or two.
I placed them in the bible,
Right in the book of Luke.
I held a sacred flower
From the funeral of my son,
Placed it between the pages
With a note of what I'd done.
So I'll keep this old, old Bible
And I'll write my family's names,
And in two hundred years from now
Someone else can do the same.
© 2009 ~ Christine Ross
~Bringer Of Light Poetry~
In memory of Lucas Christopher Ross 1979 - 2001
Published
January 2010, Volume 25 No. 1
LIVING WITH LOSS magazine
Bereavement Publications, Inc.
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