The Yard Sale

THE YARD SALE

The soldiers with their dice
Gambled for his clothes,
A sort of ancient yard sale
The victim they’d expose.

And as I stood out in the rain
The hoards came in due course
To buy our daughter’s precious things
And bargain without remorse,

It seemed to me as I watched
A spectacle inhumane
The rag-pickers didn’t care
Whose loss had brought their gain.

In one sense it surely seemed
She left a piece at a time
Not for thirty silver coins,
They haggled over a dime.

‘Life is cheap’ or so they say,
But they are still alive,
But it cost us very dearly
When our sweetheart up and died.

Then I remembered words he said
Before he did depart
‘Today you will be with me in paradise’
From this, I did take heart.

A person’s life can’t be measured
By the sum of what they had
Nor by their length of time on earth
Nor by health—good or bad.

Her motto had always been
‘love—the secret of life and light’
And as the rain came falling down
I reckoned she was right.

Like Jesus said as he died
‘forgive them for what they do’
Our baby lived by love’s refrain
And she understood Him too.

Somewhere up in heaven
She’s doing her happy dance
As we turned her precious things
Into a scholarship advance.

To help poor female students
Do what she had done
Gotten a good education
And a dream job she’d begun.

But still the rain was cold and damp,
Just like my tear stained face,
Cause nothing and no one
Could take her precious place.

At last as the rain stopped,
I realized once more
He’ll turn my sadness into joy
I’ll see the one I adore.

He’ll wipe away my tears forever
From my swollen eyes,
When he says to Christy girl,
‘Little girl—arise’.

April 23 2012