If All of This Were Up to Me

If all of this were up to me,
My gifts would be of other things,
The son to spend an afternoon
With a father long since gone,
The granddad seeing his offspring grow,
As his life goes on and on,
The children gone before their time,
Would come back home and ring the chime,
And chances lost would be our choice,
To try just one more time,
The girl whose births would fill a home,
A brother not a day alone,
The friend who’d never know the pain,
Of all that cancer brings,
If all of this were up to me,
Then these would be my things.

bobby stevenson 2020