More New Years Eve thoughts

 

a quote from C.S.Lewis:

“In your life, you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.”
C.S Lewis

I have been thinking of some of those departed friends today.  Particularly the ones I miss most:

Susan Abbott, Patrick Finnegan, and Maureen Beitman.  This poem , by Athey Thompson, is for them:

And if

You ever did

Come back

To me

What, would I tell

Of the times you had missed

Or, the times I had missed you

and from Robert Pinsky:

 

"At the bad time, nothing betrays outwardly the harsh findings,
The studies and hospital records. Carols play.

Sitting upright in the transit system, the widow-like women
Wait, hands folded in their laps, as monumental as bread.

In the shopping center lots, lights mounted on cold standards
Tower and stir, condensing the blue vapour

Of the stars; between the rows of cars people in coats walk
Bundling packages in their arms or holding the hands of children.

Across the highway, where a town thickens by the tracks
With stores open late and creches in front of the churches,

Even in the bars a businesslike set of the face keeps off
The nostalgic pitfall of the carols, tugging. In bed,

How low and still the people lie, some awake, holding the carols
Consciously at bay, Oh Little Town, enveloped in unease."
-   Robert Pinsky, December Blues