Papa Poet

Poem found! I just needed to look farther back in my journal. The poem is not the same as the original, but as close as I could get it. It began in a Victorian B & B in Hot Springs, Arkansas that had previously been used as preschool. Somehow the thought of sharing the same space with those who had gone before led to this poem. Perhaps it should have stayed lost. I’ll let the reader decide.

Theo-dynamics

Children learned their ABCs in this room
newly decorated as a B & B that echoes
still, laughter, cries, tattles and tales
through the narrow old growth oak
the same where some spilt milk
and some trace tale-tell signs of their passing.
We exist here together
though years divide us matter
can neither be created nor destroyed.
We breathe as one together,
an entropic gas in a closed system
evolved evenly into the volume
such that molecules I breathe are the same
as all have breathed from the beginning. The same
the Creator breathed in the beginning, the same
the Christ breathed in the end.
Such is space and time
we share the same room separated
by but a veil any student may part
to feel the flow of God.

I lost a poem. I thought it was on my laptop. It wasn’t. Memory stick? Not there either. Desktop? Nope. My last hope was my journal. Most of my poems at least start there and perhaps that beloved book still contained its essence. But no. It probably sounds silly but I grieved its loss, really. I didn’t write for several weeks hoping it would appear, walk through the door like a wayward child restored to her parents. It didn’t but this one did.

Poem Lost

I lost a poem.
It slipped into the crack of deleted things,
though caressed and created with love things
sometimes go to regions unknown.
Is there a repository,
an isle of misfit files waiting for Santa
wishing their noses wouldn’t glow?
Or is there a God
who rescues them all
and posts them on his fridge saving
scribbled papers and colored prayers far past reason
to remind Him of our efforts to praise
or holding onto evidence with which to confront,
like my Dad when I stole a bicycle lock
and hid in the bedroom hoping
he would not find out, or forgive.
But he did neither
what I deserved or expected,
instead he took me back
to the store, lock in hand, to share my humiliation.
I hope God has my poem.
I hope when he walks to the fridge
for a nightly bowl of vanilla ice cream
he pauses in passing and smiles.

I saw this guy near my old college campus. He was like every other anti-establishment guy you’ve seen peddling his bike down the road: sweaty, hairy, focused only on the road. But this time I saw something else.

Peace Sign

Peddle past old man
on your paperboy-special
with a simple grace and a peace
sign inked on the back of your pack
hair pulled tight in a frizzed gray bob
matching the frizzed gray beard on you face.
“Are you coming or going?” I ask,
“Going. And coming too, I guess.” I hear
and pretend to understand. Going and coming:
going to school, coming aware
going to bed, coming asleep
going to ‘Nam, coming to Jesus
just as I am
without one plea, no not one
but to grow my own gray bob and beard
and fade into the distance
bearing peace.

This is a companion post to Responsibility. Responsibility and creativity are not always mutually exclusive, just often.

Creativity

Creativity fills
compartmented gaps,
a span of two shores
above the deep
pastel portraits
evoke at once calm
and petulance, presence
and escape, an Alcatraz
oasis from afar,
an ill wind aweather.

Oh that one could eternally live
on that ethereal bridge
connecting shore to shore
and soul to soul.

I’m always reluctant to call a short poem, poetry. But I have recently found Heaven, a poetry blog that shares many short poems. She nudged me to share this poem.

Once

Once dad said
I love you.

If anyone is reading (and even if they’re not), I haven’t posted in a while due to password problems.  I think that is all fixed (thanks Gordon).  I wrote this a few weeks ago as I was about to start a lengthy training program for my real job, a profession that has provided for my family for 35 years, a profession that has given me much pleasure and much stress.  The training is a lot of work and very little fun.  Allow me this little angst.

Responsibility

Responsibility sucks
life from creativity,
vicious as vampire
fangs in virgin necks,
the creature craves sustenance
apart from the evil act
to feed, sate, and live
even one undead
where blood cascades, death triumphs.
Oh cursed creature play not.
Drain dry one lost soul
or leave just one to thrive.

St John Muse

I was on vacation last week with my oldest son and his family at the beach.  We shared lots of splashing and laughter and it was good.  One quiet afternoon, my son and I observed this poem.  All I did was write it down.

One day many days ago she ran and kicked
and sprayed like my eight year old granddaughter
swimming to the island tethered in the bay
playing King of the Mountain with friends
wrestling and pushing and falling
with a splash into the salty swells.
This day she inches to the water with help,
one on each arm and another to supervise,
none too agile though ambulatory, arm in arm
the Rockette line wade knee deep into the sea
her dual aluminum canes supporting them all
and there she stands a scant two minutes
and remembers a former time,
or at least I remember.

It’s been a while since I last posted.  Life gets like that sometime.  Mostly work changes and pressures.  Just life.  Anyway that led me to one of my old favorites for comfort that I want to share here.  The poet is John Donne, 1572-1631.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to’another due,
Labor to’admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly’I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me,’untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you’enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

What child doesn’t like to throw a coin into a fountain?  My grandchildren do.  And I readily supply the coins.  Not long ago I stood holding my 11 month old granddaughter near such a coin filled fountain.  She was tired and fussy, but the flowing water distracted and soothed her,  and provided the seed for this poem.

wishing well

are all the coins
in all the fountains
in all the world
enough to feed a child?

all the fountains
enough to heal?

do those in want
and serious wound
bless the child’s
feigned charity?

or do they wet
a coin as well?

Christmas is a nexus of faith and family. Intimate faith. Immediate family. About 30 years ago I began the tradition of writing the verse in my wife’s Christmas card. Most are serious. Some are not. Several years ago she was in a leg cast for the entire Christmas season. This is the one I wrote that year.

The Ghost of Christmas Cast

A Dickens’ tale I tell you not
Nor would he tell it as he aught
Nor by his ghosts are we harassed
But by the Ghost of Christmas Cast.

No Marley moans with rattling chains
No Ebenezer Scrooge distains
At these we scoff but stand aghast
At the lumping, thumping Christmas Cast.

No word you’ll hear of Tiny Tim
This ode does not remember him
But we’ll recall till ages past
The painful, complainful Christmas Cast.

And now God Bless us, everyone
Forgive us this most dreadful pun
We entreat you at this repast
Remove the haunting Christmas Cast.

Grace is sufficient, did you say?
Slow down? Relax? Meditate? Pray?
This cast’s a gift. A gracious fast!
The Holy Ghost of Christmas Cast.