In Memory of Patrick Egan

Patrick, you are gone too soon,
Taken away before your noon,
All your promise unfulfilled,
All your restlessness, now stilled.

Patrick, your mother weeps for you,
Half-believing it's not true,
Your Thanksgiving meal will still be eaten,
Your boyish spirit still unbeaten.

Your family, we're listening too,
Waiting to hear some sound from you,
Hoping you'll show up after all -
It's not your final curtain call.

But, oh Pat, what will we say,
When it's finally the funeral day,
And there in coffin your still form lies,
Responding nothing to our cries.

Then we'll turn, as we all must,
To face the sculptor of the bust,
With tear-stained faces to ask Him, "Why?"
"Why, God, did You let him die?"

"Eighteen, Lord, he was so young,
Just in college, just begun.
His whole life still lay ahead."
Or so we thought - but now, he's dead.

Lord, we don't know how to pray,
We're not prepared for this grim day,
But, Lord, wherever Patrick is,
Grant that he may share Your bliss.

Hold him to Your breast, so dear,
Keep him safe, Lord, keep him near,
And grant that we, who must remain,
May see You still, through all our pain.

Glass Houses

Who will reach them?
These brittle young women
Trying too hard to make something of themselves
As though a self can be made
Or bought at a trendy imports store.

Will they answer the knock
When trouble comes calling?
Open themselves to be melted and blown,
Led down the road not chosen
To what they are seeking?

I hope they won't become sharper still
Shards that glitter on the doorsill
As a warning to other young women,
"Don't come this way!"
Handing out lostness like candy at the town parade.

We are waiting...

We are waiting
  in our idling cars
    as the windows steam
      and watching through the drizzle
        for our children to come running
          to come needing
            to become
We mothers
  we are watching

A Pause Midflight

A magician's hand has passed this way
Across the trees along the Bay,
And in its wake left rusts and golds,
A playbill for what soon unfolds.
Or bits of yarn in a patchwork quilt
Of field and farm that no one built.
Not singly, yet as each man lives
He has a hand in shaping this.
And soon I too must play my part,
But gently, gently, restless heart.