Sad Words Poem by Jim Yerman

In 1856 John Greenleaf Whittier wrote Maud Muller, a poem about a maid with hazel eyes
Who was working in a field one day when a judge came riding by.

He stopped his horse under a tree to be shaded from the sun above
Suffice it to say the maid and the judge at that moment fell in love.

But neither said a word of their feelings that fateful summer day
And in the end the maid went back to work and judge...he rode away

They each married into unhappiness for how could their spouses know
Their hearts never left the shade of that tree those many years ago.

Mr. Whittier concludes, “For all the sad words of tongue and pen
The saddest are these...”It might have been.”

The other day I read a story about a homeless man who died
There was a notice asking for anyone who knew him...but nobody replied.

With no money or no relatives and his true identity concealed
He would be buried without ceremony in some old potter’s field.

I wondered about his life and what could have caused him his dismay
What circumstances could have occurred for his life to end this way?

Surely in the game of life he once thought he would win
What turned his life from what it was...into what it might have been?

The answers to these questions most likely will never be known
But to me the saddest words of tongue and pen are these, “He died alone.”