Little Charlie
If the evil men do lives after them,
it is good to be forgotten.
Sometimes good is all that flows
from a man, what is worthy
and therefore forgettable
because he gave no harm,
struck no harsh chord
to set the memory on edge.
Wisdom is not said by any number;
truth contains no decimal point,
and if the world turns around
another center, is it not better
to know the cleanest road
from Huntsville to Siloam Springs
than to chase ambition out
into a far strange land?
Patient till the last, accepting what passes and driving on, steering through life's haze, those are a man's virtues; and if he can be happy in them, that man is king of the world
that has befallen him.
Such living cannot be praised; it is its own eulogy, written
through years, delivered
in uncalculated laughter.
That we who remain remeber
if only for a while, give honor
that was never sought
and praise that springs up
from the inner wish that we
could reach the mark he set
merely by being, doing what was his to do; in the last measure
that is a man's only legacy.
Take what he may, this
is all he can ever give.
Charles W. McCormack Jr.
MArch 31, 1924 - January 24, 2004
