These Are My JOTtings, Part #2

How Are the Mighty Fallen!

How are the mighty fallen!
The mighty fallen! The mighty fallen!
They've gone the way of all the Earth!
Our lasting loss, and Ever's birth!

Why the pain, intense and full?
So famous, outside my orbit's pull,
but empathy beyond my place
can feel such grief in need of grace.

Across the country, never near,
but sadness for this flight unclear
remains within my wondering heart
of hopes not met, of lives, that part.

The Bryant home, now broken sore
with faces washing their wondrous floor.
Great tears are flooding wordless lives
to bring again their last-week thrives.

From greatness on the Lakers' court
to heartfelt goodness, this cut short
one Kobe Bryant lived to serve
the needs he found, that help deserved.

His loving daughter with him went,
whose life was started, then 'twas rent.
My hope for them is peace so given
greater than the grief we're livin'.

How precious is each day we live
with friends and family to give!
Oh, may we ever share our love
and saving grace from God's Home Above!

Your days were gifts and now such loss,
Dear Kobe, Gigi, what paths you crossed!
What sadness nine souls leave behind!
What wretched cost from fog, unkind!

I knew you only from afar.
You were Kobe, Lakers' superstar!
The mighty were taken from our peace!
No restoration for our pleas!

We lift our prayers, that Christ would carry
His wife and daughters in sanctuary.
The pain and sadness are the same
as daily love, that share a name.

by Jay O'Toole
on January 31st, 2020