"There's hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year."

I have a brief coda I'll post this coming Monday.

True greatness carves its own memorials; 'tis ours now to keep tidy and brite...

Thank you, Jim.

Thanks for collating and sharing all of these, Jim.

Laughing through tears, or crying through laughter... I suppose it's a normal way to remember such a man. I wish I'd known him when he was alive. But thank you for introducing me to him posthumously.

Have just spent half an hour rereading old e-mail and weeping. Laughing too, thank... well, thank Mike.

It's my birthday Wednesday. I don't know how to have a birthday without a Mike, though I imagine the day will happen, like days do.

Eh. I am a morose Lioness. I miss my Mike. Our Mike. Everybody's Mike.

He was a good one.

I've updated the relevant Langford website link to go to this thread and thus the entire Ford Chrestomathy.

Perhaps this is deliberate? The line is missing from the sonnet just as Mike is missing from our community, and the flawed poem contrasts with Mike's wonderful poems (as stated in lines 4-5).

(I'll feel slightly silly if it turns out it was just an error in the cut-and-paste.)

I went so far as to compose a line to fill the gap -- it would need to be the next-to-last line, to fit the rhyme scheme.

Burned bright, burned out, the fire that was his life.

It's a bit trite, but at least it scans.

A single strand of silver wire entwines
Among the gems and beads, and twists around
The finest one, a secret treasure found
Among the curves like fruit among the vines.
And when the gem is lost, the shining wire
Preserves intact its shape, its outs and ins
The places where it widens, where it thins,
Reflecting, still, an echo of its fire.
How painful for the wire to now enclose
An emptiness, a hollow in its heart.
And yet the hole is just one balanced part
Of fine-wrought silverwork. And still it grows
And shapes the gulf into its graceful whole:
A necklace and a Lioness's soul.

Happy birthday, despite it all.

Nonetheless, happy birthday!

Happy Birthday, Elise

Happy birthday, Elise! And abi, what a beautiful poem (and appropriately enough, from someone whom I personally feel has taken up some of the Mike Ford mantle around these parts, at least in the poetry department).

The challenges of Euterpe*
Barely shows us adequate for art.
Inspired, but without his quiet example
Words, once joyous, slip our net

Though joyous dwelt, given freely
Perhaps this is the lesson learnt?
Methinks he would find it most unseemly
That we hide from the joy of dreamburst

Though we had him not so long as liked
In gratitude, thanks for the miracles, Mike.

* Euterpe, the Pleasing One among the muses. Very likely co-starring with Mike in the Parnassian version of The Office, the two of them zipping bon mots in dialog far too witty for focus groups.

Moderators, can you be less moderate with Mr elektrische zigarette please? Something like a big mallet would do nicely.