Elegy for Angela Greaves Barnes, RN

(in Elegiac Couplets)

 
Elegy for Angela Greaves Barnes, RN

Checking those charts at her station my Angela carefully read all;

September nightingale unabated in snowfall...

Strong to us, suddenly frail in the eyes and her movable stride weak;

Broken in spirit and fewer her words but she did speak.

Loneliness sealed in the box with her dreams and my Angela is gone;

Roses engraved and she shines in the galaxy; lives on.

Numbness in body with shaky emotions that caved in and lay bare

Sadness of mourners there; filled with numbness from nightmare.

Cancer in stomach and pain in her bones and her thoughts in dark grave;

Fighting a battle with mortician’s hand at her still wave;

Angela spoke for a time as she geared for the traumatic event;

Gone from this world; as we grapple with hymns and with praise sent....

Christ to us gives the assurance and strengthens us; comes from the Most High;

Years of her life she at fifty would hand us her goodbye.

Wading and splashing in lake to the south of her, swans in a straight row;

Family and friends with their thoughts in respect and their tears flow.

Faces of copper and hovering cold on those mourners and pall-crew;

Marching with casket with roses away from the glass-view...

People around her at grave and her son with his sister in dark blue;
Family, Petty her friend there he stood and he cried too.

© Paterika Hengreaves

November 2, 2006/Autumn,Ohio,USA

Angela Barnes died September 16, 2006.
Resting in peace in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens.
Collage Park, Georgia ,USA

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