Dave Boughton's Retirement Gift

For a large part of my employment with PG&E I had the pleasure of working for one David Boughton.  We didn't always agree, but he treated me with more respect and dignity than was likely deserved. Dave writes poetry.  Very good poetry.  He's shared quite a bit of it with me, and when I had my retirement party in March,

2006, Dave presented a poem he'd written for the occasion.  I like it a great deal and present it here for the pleasure of those who chance to drop by. Dave himself retired later that same year.  We still get together about once a month for lunch to talk about our respective lives and activities.

There is magic in departure a passageway to a larger view where warm, subtle possibilities portend the elegance of living well. There is perhaps a sadness in arrival a sentimental sense of no return to a world that held sway with its bittersweet intoxication of purpose and absurdity. Time now to turn over rocks to see what springs from underneath time to roam to the distances to see what wondrous more there is to believe Time now to paint your face as primitives may ride the songs you will make spread new into the day And what of loss and what of gain? what of friendships, of love what will remain? No matter what space time may make no matter the course the future takes love is a treasure garden it cannot be erased It is planted for you now to cherish, to tend to enrich what you have made until all time shall end

Shin's Main Writings Page