Father And Friend Poem by Richard (Narad) Eggenberger

Father and Friend

Father and friend as son I mourn you not.
Through all the tribulations of your days
Your love held close essential things and found
Eternal values set in humble ways.
In the stormy discourse of the passing years,
Compromise replaced love's amplitude,
In a marriage fraught with bitterness and tears
Uneasy truce a frail and thin veneer.
Through all this heart was wedded to your fate
And suffered more the more your distanced lives
And angered words did finally alienate
The unity your marriage vows had sought.
Of the anger and its cause I hold no key
For sudden anger also rose in me,
Unbidden guest but sanctioned by my fears.
Now in the light of sixty years I see
That underlying all the painful tears
A love still stood when all I saw was fall
The ruin of a broken family
And years of sadness beyond my mind's recall.
There came the day of my mother's passing on,
She with whom I dueled defending you
On her deathbed I saw a miraculous thing
As the cancer and the pain raced through.
There are moments in our lives that set the lie
To all we think and believe we know as real
And on that night I met an ancient soul
Cloaked in the garb of a wasted form reveal
Her inner Self as mother and as wife,
And all my long-held attitudes erased
In a moment swifter than my thoughts
When love drew close and all my doubts effaced.
Through suffocating throes and numbing haze
Of drugs that stilled the pain but brought no hope
Her ravaged frame unable now to move,
She slipped from the failing envelope.
Yet one more time she looked at me in peace
And ever will I honor her sacred name
And ever recall the hour of her death
And the moment of her slow and final breath.
For then miraculously she turned her head
To face you father standing by her side
And somehow smiled a smile that deified
The moment and your term of life on earth.
A smile so warm, so filled with joy that I
In wonder, humbled by such deeps of love
Stood silent by as she so peacefully
Released the soul that upward swiftly fled.
But as she left, hers sisters now in tears,
She blessed again our time-bound lives on earth.
For as she rose such silence filled our ears,
A fragrance unknown on earth infused the room
And stilled all thought to lift us into light.
Neither the rose nor the jasmine's haunting air
Could match that scent of the Psychic Being there
Its benediction calming our grieving souls.

And now my warrior friend you too are gone
From pain and the crushing weight of days.
But as I slowly see within I find
A joy that broke the bounds of limiting mind,
A closeness unabridged by death and time,
Lifting us above our worldly fears
Wiping from eyes the stain of sorrow's tears
And through all future births a love divine.
Remembrance of my childhood's scented days,
The fruiting vines, the laden cherry tree
The flowers endless song to sunlight's rays
The forest grasses soft as children's cheeks.
The magic sound of rivulets and streams
The carol of birds, chant of the soothing winds,
And the wonder-world of childhood's dreams
All by your beneficence made live.
I wander through the corridors of Time
On my lips a prayer of gratitude
For all the sumptuous gifts your hand bestowed,
Lover of life, embracer of things divine.
Where is loss when your gifts outlast the years?
What grief of the heart, what sadness could endure
The light of love, the treasure now secure,
In the easy benediction of the days.
Could time erase from memory, your laugh,
Expunge from my heart your joy in simple things,
The scent of earth, the radiant light of days
And the harvest of your hands a gift for kings.
How moved you were by the slow descending sun
Arm round my shoulder weeping quietly
For a beauty passed and a glory still to come,
The richness of it all, the harmony
Of godhead's breath upon our human lives.
You left not soon but in your time and way,
You chose the final hour, from your soul
Declining support to live another day.
The earth you cherished, nurtured with your love
Receives you now as friend and honored guest
Who tilled the fields of youth and age with grace,
Yet only your broken frame is laid to rest.
The garden of your days lies empty now,
Awaiting in silence the strong determined hand
That with such endless joy did till and plow
Exulting ever in the bounteous land.
The soil you tended lies in stillness now
Asleep in winter's dreams of cloudless skies
When spring will bless the earth with warming hands
And from this day remembered there shall rise
A prayer for the deep perfection of your soul
In flight to its resting place among the stars,
To move decisively towards your goal,
Your spirit's truth, your strong and singular path.