Celebrating The Late Life Church Years Of Louise Burnam Jones - A Post Death Fairwell Poem by Bill Grace

I do not know why I loved her,
Perhaps some rare transmutation of eros
From my sixty years of frame to her eighty plus.
Perhaps that she truly needed that handicap
spot at the front of the church so clearly,
I never begrudged it to her even once.
Perhaps because she was a pillar of the place
That called the present pastor that I love.
Perhaps because on occasion she moved
with so much obvious pain,
yet I never heard her complain, even once.
Could it be because she was a teacher of so many years
a trade I truly trust?
Or that she taught at home and church
quietly gave so much good?
With us and then gone
A fast sinking ship
No time to say: 'So long! '
I grieve her timely passage
and know it is my own.
No time to say: 'So long! '
I guess I'll say it here
And hold the tear.