For Wynnis Johnson
We are life unto death sealed in its hold
when mortal limits fill a dateless urn,
a worldly spirit in a spirit world
for dust you are and to dust you return.
To do and unto my lost cause to teach -
did I not that nobility disgrace?
Yet still you sought to seek, to touch, to reach,
and to look upon the soul and its face.
It grieves me so in your deathly still vale
that cruel fate did your own fears forebode -
an honoured place far beyond this travail
waits you O’ teacher and last tributes owed.
Real was my discontent, my foolery,
yet you never failed or abandoned me.
Written: February 1994
*Wynnis Johnson 1939 ~ 1993 was my high
school math teacher at Rangitoto College
in New Zealand. May she Rest In Peace.
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