Calvary painted love's picture for me.

HONOR

 

“I don’t have time to spend with you”

Dad says to wayward son,

As he speeds off down the road

In his new BMW

 

“I have to work the livelong day

To give good things in life

To you, your sisters, brothers, too

And your mom, who is my wife.”

 

Honor your father and your mother

Is how the good book speaks

Yet I say that one has to earn

Respect that is for keeps

 

Do Mom and Dad not realize

That rich gifts are not treasures?

That to live in a shack where love is

Is one of life’s real pleasures?

 

Do our parents even know

How much time is really spent

In doing things to gain their love?

If they did, they would repent

 

Say sorry for going about the tasks

That seem to them important

And causing rifts and holes in hearts

Or atmospheres discordant

 

The thing that children value most

And will cause them to revere us

Are the moments spent in playing

Or just giving them our focus

 

If we talk while cooking food

Or spend timesround the table

Laughing, playing, just being near

Or reading Aesop’s fables

 

So, above all else at Christmas

When you read this rhyme

Remember that the greatest gift

You can give your kids, is time.

 

Bonnie, December, 2006