Adventures in the Word

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

Cramped in a window seat – 21A,
I swallow . . . swal-low, air rushing by my ears,
popping, finally climbing above the haze
until the sun tells me to pull down the shade.

Me – flanked by 200 strangers – and packed
inside an aluminum can – and hurled
along the troposphere’s belly – hoping
to land right-side-up on a patch of Houston tarmac.

I try not to think of the million things that
could go wrong but – somehow – won’t again this time;
I marvel how that could possibly be.
Is it just the odds? or is it ground for a new ‘belief’?

But where’s a faith like this for everyday;
do our normal days call for less than that?
And if I could reach my own dirt patch with half
the panache, I’d surely be fine with that.

People – sleeping, talking, eating, laughing,
calmly gazing on the patchwork stitched below.
Is it normal life or is it thirty-thousand feet or so?
or why can’t we level off and live in both?

– David Herin

It’s strange that, here it is the beginning of November, and the autumn colors are still not at their peak. The lingering fall makes me want to savor its wonders.

So I was happy to discover Luci Shaw, a poet and non-fiction writer with a strong incarnational voice. This poem is from The Green Earth, Poems of Creation.

Harvesting

Yesterday, after first frost, with maples
blazing beyond fringes of stubble hay,
my husband and my sons
pulled up dead summer’s stalks of corn,
laying them flat among the weeds
for plowing in again, when next spring’s born.

I’m glad I picked the green tomatoes
two nights ago
and spread them, newspapered,
to ripen on the basement floor,
good company for the corn relish, row
and golden row in jars behind the pantry door.

Yes, I’m very glad
something’s left — something not dead
after all the hilling and hoeing,
seeding and sprouting, greening and growing,
after the blowing
tassels high as a woman’s hands above her head.

Let me leave fruit
(but not in someone’s basement)
when I grow browned
and old and pulled up by the root
and laid down flat
and plowed into the ground.

I sit alone at my desk.
A blank blue screen stares at me,
And piles of work sit idly there,
With two phones that don’t ring.

Wires tangle under my desk,
Shoved out of everyone’s sight – except me –
I see in the corners,
The dark corners are a tangled mess.

My coffee cup that, a short while ago,
Invited my sips and promised me sweet nothings,
Now sits cold and stale –
How quickly the steam disappears!

Here! Here are my words,
Pinned to my cubicle wall.
They’re not likely to be seen or read,
And whether good or bad – no one can or will say.

Here, ten miles from home,
I think I’ll go for a walk.
There I’ll be alone with my thoughts,
And alone with the God I can’t that won’t leave.

One morning a couple of years ago, while sitting in Starbucks, I met Bill Newman. I was writing in my journal as normal, and he – over time – had noticed that I had done this frequently. He was obviously curious because he walked right over to me and introduced himself and asked me about it. Now this has never happened to me before or since, so it was sort of odd, but as I look back on it I’m sure that God was in it.

So I told him that I had been journaling for about 25 years. This impressed him and he right away suggested that I write an article on my experience for a ministry in Arkansas that he was familiar with called Christview Ministries.

This provoked me to start pondering why I journal. I had never really put into words why I did it. But journaling is one of the few things in my life that has sustained me over the years. I’ve not stuck to too many things, but journaling is certainly one of them. Clearly I’ve needed this thing in my life and so it was good to spend some time just considering why it’s so important to me.

Christview Ministries were nice enough to publish the article on their website and they’ve kept it there since 2005.

On a related note, some have described blogging as ‘public journaling.’ That’s an oxymoron to me since I’ve always considered my journals private. I keep all twelve of mine in our safe! I don’t even let my wife read my journals! And you’ll notice that I don’t go into a lot of personal angst here on this blog, BUT YOU BET I DO IN MY JOURNAL! But maybe I’ll return the favor one day and start opening up more here since I do enjoy reading the angst of others. I hope my enjoyment is not just overactive voyeurism.

I guess if comments on my blog were more active (that is, if I got more than ‘zero comments’), maybe I’d consider it more, but there’s something that sounds really creepy about opening my life up to . . . the effluvia? Where’s the catharsis in that? Hmmm.

But check out my article and let me know what you think. While you’re there check out Cristview Ministries too. I’ve not been there, but it looks really beautiful, and John and Judy Turner, the proprietors, seem to be very caring, wise people who love our Lord.