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Histoire | St-Cajetan | Mansonville | Potton

The letter:

In the peaceful little valley where the Missisquoi River flows,
There was a man who lived there, now he was living there alone.
He sits beside the fire and watches the flames, they seem to dance and play.
They make him think of his children before they went away.

He listens for their laughter and envisions the sparkle in their eyes.
He looks across the pasture and thinks he hears one cry.
Sometimes in the evening, the fog comes down with the silence of a gliding
butterfly and nestles around his homestead cabin.
There is a glowing of the sunset, such beauty to behold, just like a
sparkling diamond, all mounted in precious gold.

Then comes the blanket of darkness.
It comes for man to sleep and hide his grief and sorrow.
And gives a man a chance to weep.
Then comes the breaking of the morning.
The fog goes back to the arms of the clouds to nestle in its bosom,
so it appears another night.

The sun is now rising and it kisses away the dew.
It wakes up the sleeping roses around his homestead.
The place his children used to know.
When they left the old homestead, they told him they would write.
They were soon lost in the wonders of the city and he was soon forgotten.

His hair had turned to silver.
He stayed on the homestead, although he was getting old.
He longed to get a letter, but il seems one never came.
He would walk down to the mail box.
Down the crooked little lane, still looking for the letter that never came.

He would start back to the homestead and watch the squirrel and chipmunk play.
He would listen to the songbirds so high up in the trees.
Then he would wonder, why, is it I never get a letter.
For them I did the best I could.
I know they could write if only they would.

He picked a bunch of roses and tied them with a ribbon of the scarlet red.
He put them in the mailbox with a note and this is how it read:
"Each rose here tells a story of the love I hold for you.
I hope this note will find you and you will remember me again.
My heart is filled with sorrow waiting for a letter,
The letter that never came"

Peter Aiken