19 August 1988, between Copenhagen and Frankfurt
our human hearts ache
when love departs like dreams we awake
the longing, hoping cannot help
our loved one stay for our own sake
to witness and not be empowered
strength to act
is cruel to the heart, yet human to the fact
we live, die and the letting go
begs time for effect
love is often committed to the urn of our treasury
not to lie in dust, or other things over bury
but illuminate the dark of the memory
love being rich in joy and passion; not rage or fury
should love leave us entangled with pain
our aloneness haunt us and whisper, remain
cherish then the glad thoughts of love
whose aim was a quest (you its object)
was wont of grace beyond grief from above
advises us practice compassion; let’s not neglect
the good art of grieving for a while -
but grieve not for love
for love which comes from within, flows forever on
prompts us go on and conquer the distant mile
walk the obscurity of faith, negotiate the turf,
bends that blind but run on to tell the course
that our labour, love’s sweet labour is never, never lost.
On 19 August 1988, when I was a crew in SIA and was flying from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, with a stewardess named Elsie, I was told that that day was exactly one year to the date that she had lost her young husband to cancer. I wrote her this on a SQ stationery pad, which I copied for myself.
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