LORNA LLOYD
Ode to a dead poetess. Lyrics by Roger Coghill
Only for a while I knew you, just a little time.
I didn’t know that you would go so early in your prime.
How often sweetest Lorna, how often you and I
Would tire the sun with talking, and send him down the sky.
We barely scratched the surface of all we had to say.
You only spoke of common soil before you went away.
Yet with your mind you turned base lead re-formed from common things
To shining gold. I gasped aloud at your imaginings.
It rests within my bookshelf still, your slim anthology,
Bright with ideas of love and tears, for minds too dense to see.
Expanding our experience with thoughts not thought before.
Your words still shine like sparkling stones upon a sun-drenched shore.
Now you have gone, dear Lorna, to parse eternity;
You had to go for good, but oh, the difference to me.
Your book helps me recall those days before we had to part.
Your verse stays in my bookcase, but your pain rests in my heart.