The Cloths of Heaven

On his birthday my father says
his wishes have come true.

He asked for our happiness, and lo, the cloth was embroidered in just such a way.

He asked that love would come as it had for him, and it did, and his youngest son married with just such a love, and to his beloved three children is added a fourth. (Father always wanted five children... one more marriage should do the trick, but two more would be even better!)

He hoped our paths would weave right and true, that our feet would walk on the carpet of our dreams, and lo, the weave is more magical than he dreamed, and he surfs and rides the wave with us, our inextricable traveller and guide.




This is my favourite portrait of Dad -
done by Mum in a style she reserved just for him.

And the Yeats' poem that inspires it all.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.