Advice for my Granddaughter

Advice for my Granddaughter

Britnye Vela, Age 10

January, 2011

By Robert A. Hall

The world will break your heart, my girl,

Embrace it anyway.

You were a gift from God to us,

To turn despair away.

Enjoy each day you live, my girl,

For joy was made for you.

We see it in your happy smile

And everything you do.

Now live a life of honor, girl,

Of hope and faith and trust,

For duty's just a word for love,

And doing what you must.

Now live for something great, my girl,

For something more than self,

True happiness in service lies--

That is the only wealth.

Now live a life of learning, girl,

And read a book a week,

For knowledge is the Holy Grail,

You'll never cease to seek.

Now be a friend of truth, my girl,

And judge folk by their deeds,

For empty words are honeyed traps,

And lies are evil's seeds.

Don't live to make us proud, my girl,

But live so you are proud

Of everything you do in life--

And shun the evil crowd.

If reputation's lost, my girl,

Then life is but regrets,

So make your word your bond, my girl,

And always pay your debts.

If God is good to you, my girl,

And children come your way,

Don't pass support to someone else,

But parent every day.

Don't live for just today, my girl,

Or you will soon be bored,

The things in life worth having are

The things you work toward.

We do not wish you riches, girl,

By greed are many wrecked,

Contentment only comes to those

Who live with self respect.

We do not wish you ease, my girl,

Existence free of strife,

But all the joy that's found within

The purpose driven life.

The Unknown Killer

The Unknown Killer:
Pulmonary Fibrosis
Robert A. Hall

It comes on us as silent as the night,
And steals a breath and then another breath,
Until it smothers out another life,
To claim a hundred lives with every day.

It still remains the killer hardly known,
That takes you softly by the throat at first,
And whence it comes no doctor yet can say,
Nor how to pry its grip from off your lungs.

And so we laugh and do the best we can
To live our lives as fully as we wish,
And hold them dearly even as they fade—
It makes the colors ever more intense.

We see the haunted looks of those we love,
And understand their helpless dread and fear,
If we are losing all, they’re losing us,
And there is naught that we or they can do.

But if our time is short, so is all life,
So still we take the gift of every dawn,
And each of us must thank the God we know,
For every breath and every day of life.

If we must cope with tanks and pills and cough,
And struggle for the very breath of life,
We want to leave our mark upon the hunt,
To kill this thing before it comes for you.

Permission granted to reprint this blank verse, iambic pentameter poem.

OLD FARMSTEAD MEADOW

-
I listen through the solitude
by cupping hand to ear,
to ghostly whispers borne from youth,
or is it just the wind I hear?

I wander past a fallow field
that once was winter wheat,
and soon a fragrance draws me
like a perfume touched by heat.

Toward a path lined thick with wildflowers,
among the songs of birds so clear;
thank God the noise of modern life
cannot touch me here.

As I kneel to touch the untamed earth
and breathe in this pungent air,
I wonder—was it just the wind,
or did those whispers guide me here?

--by Sandy Raschke

From Prevailing Winds, a Collection of Country and Nature Poems.
12 pgs. $5, personally signed, includes postage. Contact:
sreditor@clearwire.net for details. Sandy Raschke is the Fiction
and Markets Editor of Calliope, A Writer’s Workshop by Mail.
(http://www.calliopewriters.org/)

Posted by Bob Hall with Sandy's permission. I've enjoyed her writing in Calliope, so purchased a copy of Prevailing Winds when it came out. I wasn't disappointed.

Sonnet for Cherished Things

Sonnet for Cherished Things

There are the times when I must turn aside,
And shift my gaze from off her cherished face,
For loving other things is no disgrace,
Career and Corps and conscience too are brides.
I hold them close to love her all more,
For love will flourish where the folk are free.
In this there is no inconsistency,
For loving her and honor and the Corps
But strengthens every bond between the three.
Though there will come a day when we must part,
It’s by the things I hold within my heart,
That I’ll achieve an immortality.
The love I bear for country, Corps and her,
They will endure. I think God will concur.

Robert A. Hall
Former SSgt, USMC

The Christmas Toy

The Christmas Toy

It came Christmas Time,
But they only have a dime.

Mom and Dad woke the boy
And told him he got a toy.

It was so fun
He thought he got a ton.

He uses it so often,
He still has it in his coffin.

--Britnye Vela, Age 9
(Bob Hall's Granddaughter)

Two Christmas Poems for Veterans

.
A Veteran’s Christmas Wish

Each year when Christmas comes around again,
I pause on Christmas Eve to take a dram
Of whisky, and I think of absent friends,
And Christmas in a place called Vietnam.

I think of boys who never had the chance
To see their kids on Christmas Eve at play,
Their lives were spent that freedom might advance,
From Valley Forge right up through yesterday.

They fell at Belleau Wood and Normandy,
At Gettysburg, at Iwo and at Hue,
They gave their lives to keep our people free,
And never saw another Christmas Day.

So take a moment from your festive joys,
To think of soldiers who were young and true,
And say a prayer on Christmas Eve for boys
Who gave up all their Christmases for you.

Copyright © 2000
Robert A. Hall
Former SSgt, USMC

Spell check notes: Scotch whisky has no “e.”
Hue (Vietnam) is pronounced “way.”

The Christmas Gift

There is a gift that comes
From those out on the lines,
It is not wrapped in bows,
But, oh, how bright it shines.

There is a Christmas gift,
A pearl beyond all price,
From those who ask for naught,
But make the sacrifice.

They risk their blood and bone
On endless weary tours,
For that is all that keeps
The evil from our shores.

You worship as you will,
You freely have your say,
And all that is a gift
From sentries far away.

There is a gift that comes
From troops who guard the line,
That lets us live in peace
And joy at Christmastime.

We say “Support the troops,”
But hardly pause to think
What honor really means,
Or how near looms the brink.

There is a Christmas gift
From those who hold the line,
And you and I, my friend,
Get nothing more sublime.

(c)Robert A. Hall 2007
Former SSgt, USMC

Memorial Day

The troubled world can offer no award
To you who sleep beneath the chiseled stone.
You died because we handed you the sword,
And we are free because you sleep alone.

The tides of history well may change the cause,
And time may blunt the sharpness of the debt,
For sacrifice, a nation under laws
Is gathered here today, lest we forget.

--Robert A. Hall

I composed this poem while marching in the Fitchburg, MA Memorial Day Parade in 1975, then used it in my speech at the upper common.