Beautiful Marlene

That's my sister, Assunta Marlene, whom I miss every day.

"Unable are the loved to die/For love is immortality" wrote Emily Dickinson.

But she also wrote, "They say that 'time assuages,/Time never did assuage" which seems equally close to the truth.

Anyway, today is Marlene's birthday.

THE LAND OF BEGINNING AGAIN by Louise Fletcher

I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,
And never put on again.

I wish we could come on it all unaware,
Like the hunter who finds a lost trail;
And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done
The greatest injustice of all
Could be at the gates like an old friend that waits
For the comrade he’s gladdest to hail.

We would find all the things we intended to do
But forgot, and remembered too late,
Little praises unspoken, little promises broken,
And all of the thousand and one
Little duties neglected that might have perfected
The day for one less fortunate.

It wouldn’t be possible not to be kind
In the land of Beginning Again;
And the ones we misjudged and the ones
Whom we grudged
The moments of victory here
Would find in the grasp of our loving handclasp
More than penitent lips could explain

For what had been hardest we’d know had been best
And what had seemed loss would be gain;
For there isn’t a sting that will not take wing
When we’ve faced it and laughed it away;
And I think that the laughter is most what we’re after
In the land of Beginning Again.

So I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,
And never be put on again.

Subscribe