Your Life-Touch: Tribute to my Friend, Ricky Wilkins

 

YOUR LIFE-TOUCH

In your all-too-brief time on this big blue ball,

You touched so many, influenced so much.

Honest as the rain.  Deeper than the ocean.

Brilliant and confident and humble. 

Intellectual and humanitarian.

Direct. Witty.

To say you were talented is to describe the sky as big.

You taught, mentored. You enhanced and improved all with whom you performed.

You played anything and everything in any needed key,

And often on a keyboard that was held together with duct tape and a promise.

If ever ivories were really tickled, I’m sure it was you who made it happen!

Your fingers danced like a chorus line!

You wrote, you played, you sang, and all so beautifully, and yet,

You stepped aside to share the light when the time came for others to shine.

You rarely, if ever, left anyone wondering what you were thinking.

You freely spoke your mind, without a worry about anyone disagreeing.

Your sugar was the sweetest ever, and your acid just as bitter.

We watched you in awe.

We listened to you with amazement and envy.

We read your brilliant political rants and wished we’d said those things!

And now, my friend, like the best in show business, you’ve once again left us wanting more.

Well played, Ricky.

Well played.

George F. Hoffman

2016

THAT'S NOT MY MOTHER

(As I watched my mother go through illnesses, some dementia, and age-related decline, I would sometimes be dismayed that a woman so very vital could be reduced to this frail, dependent person before me. A woman who had done so much in her life to help others; who had worked until the age of 84; who was so active in her community and church; a woman who had overcome crippling childhood disease, raised three children of her own, helped raise a sister....how could this woman be the same woman before me, I would sometimes ask myself. I began this poem last year, before my mother's death. Yesterday, on Mother's Day,  I somehow remembered starting this, and I thought that it was time I finished it.
This is not only for me and for my mother, but dedicated to all of you out there who may be watching loved ones' lights dim. Have faith. It's the only way.)

THAT’S NOT MY MOTHER
 by George F. Hoffman

That woman there, in Mom’s big chair,
That’s not my mother.
That woman has a distant stare,
She rarely gets up from that chair.
That’s not my mother.
That woman moans, complains and whines,
Demands, commands, repeats, reclines.
I’m thinking maybe these are signs,
That’s not my mother.

That woman there, in Mom’s big chair,
That’s not my mother.
My mom has always been so kind.
She’s never been of unsound mind.
That’s not my mother.
My mom works rings around us all.
She charges like a fireball!
My mother has it on the ball!
That’s not my mother.

I don’t know where that lady’s from.
That’s not my mother.
She doesn’t even sound like Mom.
Although she sits with great aplomb,
That’s not my mother.
Mom’s always strong. She’s never frail.
Mom is robust, not weak and pale.
Mom wouldn’t need help to inhale.
That’s not my mother.

That woman there in that big chair,
That’s not my mother.
A resemblance, maybe. But I would swear
That’s not my mother.
My mom would not have lived this way.
My mother cherished every day.
It may seem strange, but I have to say,
That’s not my mother.