You gave us dignity and grace,
a flowered charm growing through
the garden of your soul.
A gardener you always were,
tending to the soil,
pulling out each weed with meticulous care.
No tears watered your ground,
just a special kind of dry-eyed persistence
partnered with an amazing endurance
that wore down the odds.
Valiant lady, quiet friend,
sensitive with delicate understanding,
safeguarding vulnerabilities
with quiet knowing.
Sharp, incisive mind cutting through confusions,
slicing through tangles with clear reason.
Coolheaded logic frosting out demands,
inserting wisdom of the years to unlock fears
and open fresh doors of understandings.
Always a gardener,
implanting in us your surest and truest seeds.
A butterfly, wings tipped with golden wonder,
hovers briefly over your garden
before blending itself with sun and sky.
Its universal message lights once more upon our hearts.
Margery Layton
Spring, 1989
