Thank you for being simply the best!
How you do it, we'll never know:
A passionate teacher, yet one of the guys;
Never the boss, yet controlling the flow;
Kind, free and caring; groovy and wise.
Your excellence spoils us for all of the rest.
On leaving your care, we must look back to grow.
Upon these bright memories, we lay our good-byes.

Teachers are the sculptors of young lives.
How fortunate our child was shaped by you!
A year in your class taught him how to study,
No longer lost in thoughts that he finds new,
Knowing now the paths each thought derives.
Your love and strong solicitude embody
Other virtues our child has tried on, too.
Under your good guidance hope survives

Sister Margaret's been here many years
In service to the children and the Lord.
She is one lovely note within a chord
Too vast and beautiful for human ears.
Even those who've carved out bright careers
Remember long and fondly one who poured
More love into their hearts than they could hoard,
A river sweeping through their childhood tears;
Remember, too, the beauty of a life
Given as an act of charity,
All of it, not one desire held back.
Ruled by need, they pause in harmony,
Even in the midst of daily strife,
To see in her a passion that they lack.

Secretaries seek some signs of pleasure
Emanating from the inner throne.
Clearly, each is an uncherished treasure,
Running the whole office on her own.
Even so, the voice is deferential,
Though the thought knows well who knows the score.
A moment's pause might seem inconsequential;
Remember, though, that patience wins the war.
In every secretary lives an angel,
Empathetic almost to a fault,
Self-sacrificing, sweet, and sentimental,
Deep within a twelve-inch concrete vault.
A decent word, with flowers or chocolate, may
Yet charm the cherub Secretaries Day

Nurses must be angels by profession,
Under the direction of their gods.
Restoring peace to those immersed in pain,
Sustaining life in those life can't sustain,
Each nurse each day must elevate the odds,
Skilled in love's most practical expression.

Librarians are those we trust with treasures
Incalculable, for they are of the mind,
Bringing to our brief years greater pleasures,
Rage for rage, than any other kind.
All we are and have is in their keeping,
Ready to be rendered into self,
Irreducibly our inner meaning
Alive as well-wrought words upon a shelf.
No sable is so soft, or diamond hard;
Still, for everything else, there's MasterCard.

Wedding Poems