Elder by Leonard M HawkesOn the Oranjelaan
Across from the park
Near the Sumatraplein
You would speak to me.
The small, white grated
Basement windows
Marked your residence,
And I would witness
Your wasting away
In the damp and cold
Of a foreign winter.
Nameless then and
Nameless now, I know
The lonely suffering:
That sacrifice of youth
For an eternal cause
With its dull rejection.
No, surely you were
Loved--only slipped
Away--taken too soon
To the great reward--
Not just dead in Dordrecht.
01/06/2009 Author's Note: An old ghost from the mission field.
Posted on 01/07/2009 Copyright © 2024 Leonard M Hawkes
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