Farewell to an Old Comrade - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Farewell to an Old Comrade

 

He yaf not of that text a pulled hen

That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men

 

-Chaucer, Prologue, 177-178

 

A man visits his pal in the hospice room

Two great old pals, best friends from boyhood

In school and in the Army together

Best men at each other’s weddings long ago

 

Hunting trips, laughter, campfires, and coffee

They tramped the woods and fields into old age

Until the arthritis house-bound them at last

But, peace:

A good man whispers farewell to his dying friend:

 

“I remember our tramps through the mists on the moors –

And can I have that fine old Purdey of yours?”

"The Test of a Man is in His Conversation" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“The Test of a Man is in His Conversation”

-Ecclesiasticus 27:5-8

Friends are the chief ornaments of a man’s life
Through fishing trips and schoolyard baseball games
The brotherhood of barracks and camp and field
And ideas served and volleyed in courtesy

Among those men who have seen something more
Of the world than movie screens and gossip ‘zines
Men as familiar with rifle and rosary
As with a crescent wrench and single-malt

Men who can work both plow and metered line
Then lift a glass in thanks when the first stars shine