Splashing through rain to hospital 
to where my heart lies bleeding,
I hold her hand as she lies sleeping,
and so it goes, and so it goes.

My mother wears the ring she wore
more than  seventy years before,
a girl pledged to a sailor-boy,
who lived through war,
survived, he was a vision in her eyes, 
and so it goes, and so it goes.

This orphan-man made it home to her
to build a life with scarce resources
after the forces: work, money, children
and so it goes, and so it goes.

On a mild mid-September day
we buried this man she loved,
and now I try to help her live 
without him.
I'm doing all I can
but failing, failing, failing
and so it goes, and so she truly goes.

My lovely mum, Joyce May Prince, died on the 14th June, 2022