I can imagine my father’s delight in reading Manley’s “Pied Beauty” which in poetry speaks of the beauty of the natural world :

Glory be to God for dappled things -

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh- firecoal chestnut-falls; finches wings ;

Landscapes plotted and pierced - fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear tackle and trim.

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers- forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise Him.

My father died on December 2nd, 1957, My mother on October 5*, 1984, My brother, Father Clare, on February 7th, 1994.

Requiem aetemam Dona eis. Domine

Ernest Macdonald

December 10th, 2002. 110' years ago, this date my father was born.

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