• One Year After – What Would Grantley Say?

    May 26, 2025 - By 

    “I am not gone.

    Not really. I haven’t left you, not in the ways that truly matter.

    Close your eyes, and you will find me there, in the way your heart still knows mine.

    I have not gone far.

    I’m just beyond the veil of what you can see.

    And what’s absence after all but a trick of the eye?

    I am not where you can reach me anymore but I am where you can remember.

    Do not let grief turn my name into something heavy. Something you can’t speak without feeling the weight of loss in your chest.

    Let my name stay light. Let my name live on in moments when you laugh, when you love.

    You don’t have to let me go, just carry me differently.

    Lightly. Gently.”

    @ R. K. Nightingale ©

  • We Would Never Die

    July 3, 2024 - By 
    Brotherhood

    We can never sever, our bond of brotherhood,
    The world is cruel and friends are few;
    We must hold steadfast to our faith in all that’s good
    That WE, four brothers from childhood grew.

    For we have shared the midnight wind
    Whispering our weary world to sleep,
    And we have felt destiny’s arbitrary hand
    Causing us to laugh or weep.

    The splendid wonder of each morning
    Brought to us its sudden birth,
    From a world often over-wearying
    By drudging toil or festive mirth.

    The shouts from our sport teams
    Echoed like a clarion call,
    And within our souls we wrapped our dreams
    WE four brothers, a joyous cabal!

    And we followed what singers wrote
    In cadences of mystic song,
    We mimicked their lyrics with bragging sport
    Winding through paths of right and wrong.

    Till all our worlds bloomed right as rain,
    And our new manhood too was free,
    And each one hugged brother and friend
    In embrace that spanned eternity!

    Knowing that We – WE would never die!
    Thus is our kinship fiercely true!
    For WE, four brothers death defy,
    In love, in pain – O Grantley!
    In memories – sweet memories, forever new!

    A poem by J. J. W. as adapted by Carmen Rogers-Green.