A DEDICATION TO A FRIEND

I am your friend and my love for you goes deep
There is nothing I can give you which you have not got
But there is much, very much that while I cannot give it
You can take

No heaven can come to us
 Unless our contemporary hearts find rest on it today
Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is
Not hidden in this present little instance
Take Peace

The gloom of the worlds is but a shadow behind it
Yet within our reach is JOY
There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see
And to see we have only to look

Life is so generous a giver,
But we judging its gifts by their covering cast them away
As ugly or heavy or hard

Remove the covering and you will find beneath a living splendour
Woven of love with joy and peace
Welcome it, grasp it and you will touch the Angel’s hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty
Believe me Augustus the gift is there the joy is there
And the wonder of an overshadowing Presence

Our joys too we cannot be content with them as joys
They too conceal diviner gifts,
Life is so full of meaning and purpose
So full of BEAUTY beneath its covering
That you will find that earth that cloaks your Heaven

Courage then to take it, that is all JUSTIN E.
But courage you have and the knowledge
That we are pilgrims together
Wending through exactly unknown population home

And so at this joyous time of year I greet you
Not quite perhaps as the world sends greetings
But with profound esteem
And with the prayer, that for you now and forever
The day breaks’ and the shadows flee away.

By:  Anderson P. Desir
December 12, 1995