THE ORACLE -- "OUR DAD" -- TRIBUTE TO EMÉLIE DION MORIARTY

EMÉLIE 50 YEARS LATER -- 

This is a rather crazy day.  There are many of those in my life.  Just ask anyone who knows me, even just a little bit.  This one is a little over the 50% bar though, so I'll tell you why.  We came to San Diego from where we live, 90 miles away.  We do this often.  About once a week.  I had worked rather steadily at my home-based job so I had a mess on and around my work desk.  So before I left our humble abode, I grabbed all the paper that would fit into a shallow box and decided that I was going to "clean up, tear up and burn up."  Into the trunk it all went.  We got to San Diego and soon after, out of the trunk it all came and I started in on doing what it would take to reach my goal.  NOW, you've all heard the axiom, "Anyone who knows how to read never succeeds in cleaning out the attic."  That's right.  Since I know how to read, yeah, x 7, you know that I am in trouble.  So today, I was only confronted with 3x.  It should have been easy, right?  HA!  The good news is that I really did not have that much.  But it has been enough.  The other part of the good news is that it is mostly dog-eared poetry, English, mostly.  I do have my wonderful description of Springtime, 100 lines of classic French Alexandrine verse.  Oh, I read it, of course, and I have to say that it is still as good now as it was when I wrote it.  But, it will have to be for another time.  I also found a bunch of stuff by Denis and by Emélie.  Some good, some better left lying in the box.  No offense.  We all have a bunch of that stuff.  Why we don't burn it is beyond me, but we don't.  I also found a whole season's worth of a rag that was titled "THE SHAKER GAZETTE"  published and edited by one, pseudonomistically known as "B Z B".  It was a bulletin board fish-wrapper that appeared now and then pinned to the porch wall and purported to report on the "doings" of the seminary student body in Enfield, NH.  [In those days it was N.H.]  Man, it is soooo puerile, sophomoric and many other negative words.  But, it too maintains its place in my life.  YUK! but don't you dare try to burn it.


NOW, THE GOOD PART, ACCORDING TO THE TITLE -- THIS ONE BY THE POET LAUREATE OF 1 HARTFORD STREET, SOUTH HADLEY FALLS, MASS.
Published nearly 50 years ago in the local Holyoke Transcript Telegram, March 4, 1961, nearly 3 months after the expiration of EFR Dion.


Our dad is up in heaven,
   That we know for sure.
For heartaches and loneliness
    We wish there was a cure.


Our dad is up in heaven,
    Let's all go tonight.
    we're sure that we'd see daddy
    and he'd be a welcomed sight.


For daddy now there'll no pain;
    His life on earth is done.
He's waiting there in heaven
    for all of us to come.


We think sometimes that God is wrong
    And we are always right,
But God is much bigger than we
    And not only in height.


Sure we'd like to have our daddy
    But he has eternal rest.
Who are we to say
    That God did not do best.


Our dad is up in heaven;
    We can't see him anywhere.
But someday it will be our turn
    To go and meet him there.
Emélie M. Dion
South Hadley Falls


I have the original clipping for anyone who wants a scanned file.