“A Friend to Be”

When smiles are not enough you embrace me

Sometimes you wipe my trickling tears away

You help to brush the dust on me to see

My flaws, my strengths, in God’s quite normal day

It’s hard sometimes to think of you so far

With rivers and stretches of stream between

Your glossy picture greets me in the car

Without a nice shoulder for me to lean

In spring, the nightingale sings at the lake

Next to the forest path we always took

As I walk the branches quiver and shake

Searching for he who walked along the brook

I watch the gleaming stars waiting for you

A friend to be home soon, long overdue