Many years ago, I received a poem in the mail. It had no return address and no signature. The year was 1974. I received it when I was 16 years old, living in New York city, during a very dark time in my life right after a time my good friend Mike was killed in a car crash. (Mike has his very own label right here in my blog.) It was such a beautiful poem filled with love and comfort. I kept it folded in my wallet for many years never knowing who sent it to me. As a matter of fact, I still have it.
So many years later, through the gift of the internet ,I was in touch with an old friend from back in New York. He admitted it was he who had written the poem to me all those years ago. I was glad to have had the poem mystery solved. But more importantly, I finally had the chance to thank him and told him how much his words had helped me through some very sad days and how often I read that poem at the time.
It's funny. I didn't know who wrote it and he didn't know how much it meant to me. Sometimes in life you just don't know. Sometimes in life things happen and you really don't need to know the who or the why. Something like angels I guess. You just know that someone, somewhere is out there. And sometimes there is one who cared enough to send a kind word and those words help to either get you through another day or give in to pain and grief that wanted to swallow you whole.
That very day, some 45 years later, he wrote me another. Thanks Bart. You're an angel.
If I Could Your Heaven Sent Angel Be
Now that we are so many years older
I wonder could I be a wee bit bolder
And say to you if I had angel’s wings
I would not be one who heavenly sings.
As in poems of youth I tried to comfort thee
When sad darkness was all that you could see
When one love was lost - there at your side,
There was a love - that I chose to hide.
Now no songs of happiness and of loves lost
Or of how to be brave and bear the costs
While hiding tears and subduing fears
And keeping up smiles all these years.
Instead I would wing my through chill night
To you as you sleep, drawn for just the sight
Of the beauty you held then, and still now hold;
I’ve cried for years never to have been so bold.
And should you awaken as I come near
I would shudder at discovery’s fear
Would it be ever too much to bear
So much that I’d swiftly flee from there?
Or would I stay a moment longer
Would my resolve grow any stronger
Would your sweet smile me embolden
Or to shyness would I stay beholden.
I beg my inner self to me would show
by some magic that I would stay - not go
That I would not fly alone into the night
Trembling afeard of such a beauteous sight.
Tonight, should fallen angel promise me
That this dream could become reality
For one night of this, my soul I’d sell
And brave eternity in downtrodden hell.
Yet, if I could your heaven sent angel be,
There would be joy and no mystery.
For I would forever be there at your side
And my love for you I could never hide.
Yet a weak man am I, without angel’s wings
And dreams of mine - are but misty things.
Yet through night’s mist I now see you smile
And for that I’ve winged o’er many a mile.
Love,
Bart (yes this one I wrote, just tonight)
