Indeed young Rachel, ‘this is not yesterday.’
And oh yes, and for that matter ‘It’s not the meantime now!’
For this is our moment.
Hale Bopp had brought the brightest gift to Aberdeen.
Two comets had blazed in-between
and then faded in the night sky,
but held still,
in our wonderful moment.
It was Aberdeen’s reevin win that brought us our millennium marvel.
Dark eyes brightening the nineteenth.
Hearts bursting with joy beneath.
Tears cradling a wonderful moment.
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
“over the stair she went, she went….
Heavily down the stairs
Binglety, banglety, bumplety
Down with apple & pears…”
That was how our dear soldier fell.
Stookied in sympathy with thoughts cast
always to dwell in the moment.
Yes, our dear soldier reached out to the lost
and brought them together again
in a kaleidoscope of showering comets, and
one last glittering moment.
Footnote: I wrote this poem 20 years ago following a fall that our daughter had down our stairs. Rachel was just a year old and was climbing the stairs with a biscuit in her hand. She broke her arm and required a stookie [a plaster]. Rachel fell on Remembrance day at 11 am exactly.