For Elsie My Dandelion Queen

Beautiful.

Bill, this is a wonderful gift for Elsie!

William...friends are benedictions to one another. What a lovely poem you penned for Elsie.

What a lovely tribute to a friend and her memories of the home she is leaving behind and of the coming wonders ofher new place! William, this is wonderful and I am sure she will love it!

Hope you have a great Sunday!

you gonna make elsie bawl, william...but in a good way....a good way indeed....:)

What a beautiful movng present for Elsie. Heaven knows she deserves it.

Decisions without choices...
Beautiful albeit sad tribute to a dear lady.

A new chapter each blessed day that we awake with wonderment of new and kind hearted friends to converse with.
Elsie you are truly blessed to have so many people in your life.

Absolutely wonderful tribute to Elsie, William. You are a good friend.

Beautiful, wonderful, lovely: I just read all these accolades for this rich and caring tribute poem and there is scarcely another superlative I would choose to add, save to express my own amazement at how well you lyrically captured the sweetness of a fulfilled life in all its afterglow´s redolence, William.

This poem has an eternal quality to it in the best sense, like all good literature, and apart from that--I know since I just read it aloud, but liltingly so--it would be a magnificent song if arranged right.

Elsie clearly is a remarkable person, and great virtual friend to you to have generated such a gorgeous ode. Congratulations to her for having sparked you into such a sterling effort.

¨And dandelions will bloom on warm Spring days....¨this possesses the softness and divine innocence of a John Clare, transmitting genuine sentiment without a trace of cloying sentimentality.

Marvelous.

This is a lovely poem, William.

This is so beautiful and just absolutely wonderful.

This made me cry, Bill. What a wonderful tribute to Elsie and the difficult time she has gone through recently with her impending move. All of her virtual friends here wish they could lend a hand physically with her move later in the week.

I think this is one of the most beautiful poems you have written; your love and respect for Elsie shine through each word. This is definitely one that I want to save.

What a sweet friend you are William. And I think Elsie will love it and cherish it. And yes, she deserves it ! You write so beautifully.

wonderfully done, William... you are a very talented turkey :)

Marvelous, William! What an exquisite gift! Thank you for letting us peek in the package!

Very nice, William!

this is a very beautiful and thoughtful tribute. Fine craftsmanship. :)

William, Elsie has packed and still written her poems, always stood up to bat. You know how hard it has really been for her to give up the home she has had so long. Shared with her family. Now she has to start making new memories in a new place. You are a dear friend to write this for her. I have one regreat. That all of us cannot just form a caravan and go help our sweet Elsie. Get to meet her first hand and maybe give her a hug.

I keep hoping that one day I will gain some of her strength. At her age, she is the strongest woman I have ever known. So intelligent and talented too. You have honored her well my friend.

I am looking forward to reading her reaction to this when she reads it.

Elsie you are well loved by so many.

Thank you William for your beautiful and caring words.

Oh, my goodness, William, such a wonderful poem and for me, and I can hardly see to type this, this day is so sad for me especially, but you made it okay, thank you, I love your poem, I will write more when I can ... in a little bit , when I can see, love you, Elsie

William, I have watched my mother go through this, and you have captured it perfectly...

Wonderfully moving ,William..I see Elsie was here..! and know she appreciated your poignant words.
this is a thoughtful piece causing the reflection of all those memories left behind in the previous abode now abandoned for one reason or another..
do they replay in some other time on some other plane?

I could feel the emotions in Elsie's recent poems. I remember the absolute heartbreak I felt moving from my home on the mountain in Japan: So many memories. I got up to pour a cup of coffee and the first two lines of this poem came out of the blue. I instantly knew it was for Elsie. I prayed for God's help. I guess it took me roughly 90 minutes to write this. Again, the number format in this has significance. We all have the same well of emotions.

William! This poem for Elsie is beautiful. I wish her kind and gentle days as she makes this difficult transition.

Elsie is certainly our royal highness, the Queen of gather and Dandelions too.

Three verses of 9 lines each=999
Most lines are 10 syllables

I don't understand the significance of the numbers but I admire the way you write in such a well defined structure.

William, your timing is impeccable, as are your sweet words to the queen of all our hearts here ;)

9 = the final single digit number. The culmination. The outpouring of creative imagination, or in this case recreating all that happened before in her thoughts.
9+1 = 10, or 1+0= 1: This is about 0ne person. One is the beginning, and in this case a new beginning.
All lines in the way I want this spoken aloud contain 10 syllables and as you noted Marge this equals 999. There's an old saying, 'I have a thousand things to do.' Well, Elsie is not yet moved, but on that day, a singular day, (999+1) she will have 1,000 things to do.
3 stanza = Her 3 sons.
The last line of the first two stanza do not rhyme. Two lines don't rhyme. The 2 signifies the loss of her husband and daughter.
The last line does have a rhyme with the plural s. This signifies all will come into harmony for her and the s means she will have many days and years, to enjoy her new living quarters.
Each stanza has 9 lines to signify the 9 important family members in her life and with 0nly 3 stanza signifies (3 is the number of creativity) they are what gives her life zest and a creative spirit.
Making this poem conform to the number system I wanted was a challenge and when I'm challenged I usually am more careful, more creative and I take more care in trying to get good quality.

This was so sweet!

oh the tears are coming so easily today! dang it!

Beautiful awesome poem and tribute to our lovely Elsie. Wish we could be near her.

This is beautiful, William!

William, this is a gift to a lovely woman.

Dear William, I have written you an email about this poem and you know how I feel about it, and I love your explanation of it, it all makes perfect sense to me, now that I can read it without tears streaming down my face, the day worked out pretty well, I got a lot done, my grand daughter Linda and her husband came and took out most of the junk I don't want and some good stuff I wanted to give her, pots and pans and dishes, and glasses, I will never use them again, but we worked hard, and Mark, Billy and I went to a diner for dinner at 10 PM and got home about 11:30 , so all is well that ends well, and just two more days and I don't expect to have a computer after tomorrow night, until maybe Wed late, or Thursday if they do everything right, so all those reading this thread, I am not dead or anything, of ignoring any one, just uncomputerized for a couple of days unless my geek here has a way of fixing things faster, never do know, and I am optimistic that all well be well, I love the poem William, I am honored and overwhelmed. 'Thank you again.

William, your poem was beautiful the first reading. Now that I've seen your explanation about the numbers and all, it is incredible to me, and wow, you really did something very, very special for Elsie. This is magnificent.

This is again your best one...I love your 3rd stanza where you have saidPreparing for tomorrow's from God's grace
A new chapter written saving each page
And dandelions will bloom on warm Spring days
You understand so much...You are so wonderful...

Bhawana, You're going to make my head swell and I'll have to buy a larger hat.

I loved this poem before the explanation of the significance of the numbers but now I am also in awe.

What an amazing talent you have to be able to write something so touching and meaningful under your self imposed structure! Very impressive!!!

Marge, If you care about what you write you should have some criteria. What I'm doing is just the basics to use as a guideline.

What a lovely moving-gift William. And a moving gift - made me cry.

Just read the comments about numbers. Wow! Really neat and satisfying.

That was a beautiful poem for Elsie.

Thank you. A treasure for Elsie and for us.

You touched all of our hearts. Thank you.

Above, Karen V left a comment. I recommend you go to her site and read her short poem, 'before I knew'.

A wonderful poem to our dear Elsie.

Elsie my heart, and many other hrearts, are with you during this period of change.

No matter how much you try, you'll never forget your old house or any of your memories. As you sit somwhere quietly, anywhere at any time, memories will come to you.
They will come to you to add value to your life. They will tell you that you are not just Elsie...but Elsie with with a bundle of muliti-colured memories.
Memories that make us love you, dear Elsie.

Elsie has became our Dandelion Queen. I refer to her as the Queen of Gather. You have honored her well and soon she will be back walking the halls of gather with you, while most of us are all snuggled up and sleeping. You are the only two I know that stay up and do your commenting while we sleep. I know this is one of the first places she will stop when she gets set up in her new home.

oh William... you have touched all of us... Elsie is such a wonderful dandelion queen... i pray that her move goes well and that she gets re-computerized
again really soon... we all love her and you too....sweet boy...
Blessings to all...


Girly Comments & Graphics

After all this time, I finally started back in your writings ... to see what I missed. I going back to a starting point, this title hit my fancy. I wasn't here then ... so can only guess ... but couldn't keep from crying. It was the hope in the last line (On the reread I see it was the last 4 lines) that brought tears of relief. Part sadness and part happiness. I guess hope is what mixes them up :):)