Wings of Time

Remember me in the Family Tree -

my name, my days, my strife.

Then I'll ride upon the wings of time

and live an endless life.

Linda Goetsch

Unvisited Tombs

And now having inscribed this brief record, I realize how difficult it is to write history.


A few names have been mentioned,
a few dates noted,
but how many threads must be dropped,
how many facts unwritten,
how many persons forgotten.

Faces vanish,
voices are hushed,
footsteps heard no more.

It may be events important in their results,
names potent for good or ill,
have found no place in this simple story . . .

And we deeply feel the truth of that beautiful saying of George Eliot:

The growing good of the world
is partly dependent on unhistoric acts;
and that things are not so ill
with you and me
as they might have been,
is half owing to the number
who lived faithfully a hidden life,
and rest in unvisited tombs.

Charles P. Kane (1850-1918)

Converse with the Fathers

Here, if anywhere, we can hold converse with the fathers, and feel that the names which we read were borne by men and women who were alive in our town when its inhabitants numbered but a score, and when the first grave was made of the thousands that have received the successive generations of citizens.


Sarah Loring Bailey
22 April 1834 ~ 08 September 1896
from her Historical Sketches of Andover
 

Surnames

So . . .
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So . . . get on your way!

Oh, the Places You'll Go!
by
Dr. Seuss

As quoted at
The Sand Creek Sentinel

We are here to speak your names

We are here to speak your names
because of the way you made for us.
Because of the prayers you prayed for us.
We are the ones you conjured up,
hoping we would have strength enough,
and discipline enough,
and talent enough,
and nerve enough
to step into the light
when it turned in our direction,
and just smile awhile.

Pearl Cleage

To Bring the Dead to Life

TO BRING THE DEAD TO LIFE
by
Robert Graves

To bring the dead to life
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start.

Let his forgotten griefs be now,
And now his withered hopes;
Subdue your pen to his handwriting
Until it prove as natural
To sign his name as yours.

Limp as he limped,
Swear by the oaths he swore;
If he wore black, affect the same;
If he had gouty fingers,
Be yours gouty too.

Assemble tokens intimate of him --
A ring, a hood, a desk:
Around these elements then build
A home familiar to
The greedy revenant.

So grant him life, but reckon
That the grave which housed him
May not be empty now:
You in his spotted garments
Shall yourself lie wrapped.

from
Terry Thornton's
Hill Country HOGS Blog