The Lord said,
I have graven you in the palm of my hand.
He went on to say that heaven and earth
Would forget you, but he would not,
For eternity of love knows no end.
I, merely mortal, believe this -
Indeed I know it
Because I lived with you
For a lifetime and eight years
After you have gone your way,
I have not forgotten.
Even in the pain
I could not forget
Because my own palm
Met yours in the dance
Of sorrow and joy
I still believe is infinite.
Your hand is gone,
But your name is there
Into eternity,
Engraved in the palm of my hand,
And I shall never forget you.
Bettie Anne Doebler is retired from many years of teaching English. She now devotes herself to writing poetry. Thirty of her poems have been published in a book, Book of the Mermaid, and in 1994 she published a book of literary criticism, "Rooted Sorrow:" Dying in Early Modern England. She has suffered from strains of depression, both in her family of birth and her own close family, particularly with the suicides of her daughter and her husband.