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Villanelle:  

Elegy for my Father...

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"I count only the sunny hours" is carved in stone on the sundial's weathered face where we walked in the garden among the shadows and flowers.

Time grieves from no one.  Winter quickly devours the leaves and blossoms; snow takes their place.  But I count only the sunny hours.

Remembering bright days:  your tall body towers above the sundial, stopping time in your dark embrace, in the garden where we walked among the shadows and flowers.  

Your winter, your dark days, your silence overpowers; and no child's cry could call you from that place.  But I count only the sunny hours.

Season after season, through sun, snow, and showers, the sundial measures moments that time cannot erase:  when we walked in the garden among shadows and flowers. 

 

Time weathers us all, the rain erodes, the winter wind scours; the harshest seasons are what shaped my face, though now I count only the sunny hours, when you and I walked among the shadows and flowers.    

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