From The Christening (poem)

This poem was inspired by my Aunt Mary Jo, my Godmother who held me at my christening and who I felt was like a second mother to me. It was also inspired by memories of times together with the extended Bohrer family and thoughts of those in the family who have passed.

Peace.

From The Christening

Those who came before us

are not gone,

even though they rest today

in quiet fields of stone and flower.

Those we love who are gone

live in mind and heart,

their home,

alive in love’s power.

But more than this,

those who came before

and gave us life,

or read stories to us at a Sunday visit,

played games together at the family picnic,

gazed out the window with us during the storm –

arms around –

or held us at the christening,

still live I claim.

Look back through the lens of time.

Follow the unseen line of sight,

not my invention,

but one that science calls dimension.

This story tells of an unbroken line, a celestial strand,

a woven thread of strength eternal.

The eternal now.

Now.

The ones we love

are still as they were,

alive and strong,

though passed from our easy view.

They still move and breathe,

laugh and sing,

on that line of time,

as real as yesterday,

like friends who moved away

now living in another town.

But we’re the ones who moved.

Still, that strand is in our reach.

I feel the threads return and join,

connecting to the fabric here

that I now hold in hand,

this fabric of the gown passed down

from the christening.

For Aunt Mary Jo

April 2014  North Andover, Mass.

PS Here's a picture of me and my Aunt Mary Jo when I visited her this past July. She passed away only three months later, on October 14, 2025.