My dear sister Carolyn was a happy go lucky woman, always looking “somewhere over the rainbow”. A positive and upbeat lady, she preferred to move forward with her life rather than dwell on the past. I think she would appreciate this poem by Irish poet John O’Donohue written to comfort his mother and family after the passing of his beloved father. Beannacht  is a Gaelic word for “Blessing “ -May her memory be a blessing,

Rubi Abrams 

Beannacht

by John O’Donohue

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.