Adventures in the Word

Out of breath and still I lag behind
my son who’s already lapped me once,
his longer strides will never fail
to outpace mine, but I really don’t mind.

His two miles to my one just
shows how far he’ll go past me.
He’ll do things I’ve never done;
he’ll see things I’ve never seen.

The days and hours I’ve spent
on things I knew would never last,
I now can weigh in flab and count in vacant
eyes that look for answers I don’t have.

I wonder: where did the hours go?
Tell me: what do I have to show
for the artificial pixel shows,
for endless hours on the go?

How can I know my life won’t die
and shrivel up from wishing I’d done more –
a slow but certain death of secret regrets,
I must get off this carousel of lies.

I’m slowing down and feel the uphill climb,
one day my son will come behind this way,
I hope I can give him hope enough to get up
this last steep incline they call Golgotha.

– David Herin

At lunch I sit alone surrounded by four
other tables also taken by one –
the only other one has two, and though
face to face, they too are absent and alone.

The air of afternoon hangs over
and around us, a clouded atmosphere
of crowded thoughts and fears that stare
us down and will not leave us be.

The chair across from me sits vacant,
not reserved for any person,
yet phantom eyes are somehow blankly
staring back at me and beckon.

Even when I’m by myself
I can’t stop searching other faces –
people walking, laughing, talking,
nothing draws my eye as well.

Why can’t we peer above our papers
long enough to look around –
to spot a human being near,
who’d like a cup of coffee, right here?

But when I finally sit and sup
with someone so our words
embrace and intermingle . . . hmm . . .
Someone else is seated at our table.

– David Herin

I wrote the poem below the day before my mother was buried in December of 2002. I thought about reading it at her funeral, but decided against it. I thought it was too depressing at the time and I really wanted it to be just between the Lord, my mother and myself, (although I let my sister read it). But I printed it out and rolled it up and put it secretly in her casket.

Until now I thought the poem was too much of an intimate window into my mother’s life. But now I want her life to continue to speak to me and to anyone who will listen. And for the record, I want both the good and the bad of my life to be spoken of at my funeral. I don’t believe we honor someone by whitewashing over their life.

But this poem does not really speak badly of my mother – only to her fragility.

   Dear mom,
Why did your rose not bloom?
Your stems were grown, complete with thorns.
The blooms of spring were poised,
but your reds and pinks and scents,
we could hardly see – they still were closed.

   why mom?
Did the hemlock cast a shadow?
Did the ground grow still and fallow?
Did the rains not come
and grace your leaves and petals well enough?

   O mom . . .
I wish I’d cut the hemlock down,
and loosened the root-bound soil around,
I wish I’d cleared the ground,
to coax your fragile flowers bloom.

I’m sure the colors would be bright and bold
and heavenly to hold
under our noses.
and I’m told your special kind,
though hard to grow,
would well be worth the extra time.

   but mom,
at least now, let your flowers open wide,
with praise and love to Christ.
Never, ever again to close;
forever now, give the beauty of a rose.

–David Herin