- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Elizabeth's Vigil with her Father
Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click here
"How do I love Thee? Let me count the ways"
I scribbled by your bed. Soon after dawn
you used to change my diaper. Before lawn
and garden work or golf on Saturday
you counted little piggies. On Sunday
in the morning you said that prayer is song
and sang "You Are My Sunshine" until yawn
became a smile. Tonight with some dismay
you rummage through the Daily News to find
the comics. Then you say "Elizabeth,
I think that Popeye's dead" and I'm reminded
it's the hour for your prayer of faith
when you say " but God willing, I'm inclined
to believe he still loves you after death."
for my wife who is caring for her father
- COMMENTS
legerdemerover 9 years agoMoving, sweet, deeply felt. I've been on vigils for each of my parents on their death beds and watched each of them go. Yes... 5, not that it matters much in this case.
DawnJabout 11 years agoWhat an absolutely delightful, delicious, brilliant poem! Having just recently (as in a few minutes ago) read another rather raunchier imitation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's love poem, I am both delighted and floored by your rendition. The explanation you provide for the poem takes nothing away from the sheer wonder of the memories you evoke here! How patient and loving was Elizabeth's dad, and how that patience is rewarded and mirrored in her actions! And it's a pretty happy coincidence that the watcher here is also named Elizabeth.
There are things in this that remind me of Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays", another poem about a father's love. These two lines from his poem bring Elizabeth's vigil here into sharper focus for me:
"What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?"
Thank you for sharing this truly wonderful poem! :)
bflagsstabout 13 years agoIt's nice to me that you use EBB's iconic work. She was actually disowned by her father for going off and marrying Browning, and if I remember right she was never forgiven.
vrosej10about 13 years agoMy mother is prematurely heading into this kind of decline. Doesn't need nursing yet but I can see it coming. A great poem greenmountaineer.
buttersabout 13 years agofrom every angle.
solid 5 and added to favourites. what a wonderful write.
