Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Priorities, keep the straight!

Many years ago, my grandmother cut this poem out of a newspaper, made a notation,"how true," in the side column, sent it to her cousin, and eventually got it back.  Somehow it came into my possession.  I've treasured it.  My grandmother DID have her priorities straight in life when I knew her.  She was a lot of fun and admired by many friends.
 
Of Things That Are
    Lovely and Fleeting
 
The dust on the piano keeps better
    than the flashing
Of loveliness, keeps better than
    the clean slant of wings
Across the cool garden, where the
    honeysuckle berries
Call the brown song sparrow that
    balances and sings.
 
The undone ironing keeps better
    than the beauty
Of the star-hung plum tree in
    the drying yard,
And the undarned socks will out-
    last the radiance
Of a sunset's glory to its last
    bright shard.
 
The tarnish on the spoons keeps
    better than the mischief
In a wee girl's eyes or the sun-
    light on her hair,
And the stacked supper dishes will
    long outlast the clinging
Of a small boy's arms and his little
    whispered prayer.
 
Ah, life is so short and the earth
    is so beautiful,
And boys and girls are children for
    such a little while--
So we run n the orchard and look
    for the four-leafed clovers,
And we know a spotless house isn't
    worth a baby's smile.
 
By Leona Ames Hill
 
 
 
 

4 comments:

  1. You know, I've often noticed that if I leave the house and something isn't finished or done here and I've gone off to do something I wanted to do or to visit or just enjoy, the stuff I left behind, undone, was still here, waiting for me to return, looking just as it did when I left. My Mom was one of those who couldn't leave the house unless every bed was made, every dish washed up, everything all neat and tidy, etc. And for what? To miss out on so much of life passing by her in the long run.
    Loved the poem as it does speak the truth, doesn't it?

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