Midpoints

On 20260408 By Beleaguered ServantIn Personal Essays1 Comment

We mark significant beginnings and ends when we are aware of them. But we frequently aren’t aware, except in retrospect.

Once we are aware that a first time has occurred and a last time is coming, it becomes about what we do with all the times in between. Otherwise we miss the moments themselves, which is all life is comprised of.

My wife and I have been married going on 26 years, and we are currently are on a vacation together in Nashville, Tennessee. A little mental math tells me that we are almost certainly closer to our last such trip together than we are to our first one.

Almost every good and beautiful thing I have in my life traces back to her, and I hope a day never goes by that she doesn’t know that I cherish her and all the moments we get together. Long love is not about putting on a show, it is about showing up.

And she always shows up for me.

Filling Station

On 2022050720220507 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems15 Comments

Once
A woman and her husband
Stopped at this place

She, eight months with child
He, thinking about walking out
And the drive had been a tense one
Old wounds reopened
Fresh hurts on display

And an old couple was there
At the same time
Laughing while they pumped gas
They asked her when the baby was due

She said, “One month.”

The old man asked her husband
“Are you excited?”
“Nervous,” was the reply

“Don’t be. Just remember:
Loving someone
Who loves you back
Is the greatest thing in the world.
And your child
Will love you back.”

Forty-eight years later
The woman is no longer young
She stands at this abandoned place
Her young granddaughter in tow.
“What is this place?” the little girl asks

This place?
This is where your grandaddy and I

Decided to stay in love

(“Filling Station” – 8-15-2014)

{ holding still }

On 2021102420211024 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems2 Comments

today, this day, we have,
 but others had them, too —
 a place midst moving out and
 holding still —

the autumn sings a song of
 what is here and gone:
 a chorus we can hear, if
 we but will

i loved you in my time, and you
 have loved me, too;
 our limits, each, like blankets
 keeping warm

the essences of all
 our fleeting memories,
 the shapeless pattern,
 looking for a form —

but in this golden autumn, see
 or hear these words:
 or drink them, if you ever
 need a fill —

that what you’ve given me
 has always been enough,
 and to you, i’ll be always

 holding


 still

My love’s a creature of the light…

On 2020090920200909 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

My love’s a creature of the light,
She needs the sun to feel alive;
And though she’s there when darkness comes,
If I would see her shine, and thrive,

I must wait til the clouds have passed,
Til night has gone where it must go —
My love’s a creature of the light,
And I live in

The glow

If I Like Sky

On 2020090720200907 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

If I like sky could truer be
I’d make for you a canopy
Of wonder in the feathered day
And stars to shine at night

For what is this regard that calls
Us over time and out past walls
But nature, and its urge to grow
And move into the light?

If I like sky could cover you
I’d make a train of white and blue
For you to wear as you decide
My love, my life, my heart,

My bride

when love is light and past the door

On 2020081620200816 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

when love is light and past the door

we live the life that no one sees

when breaths are taken in for time

and focus aims to slowly please

there is so much reality

that’s nowhere on the internet

there’s so much more to human life

than art has ever shown us

yet

We ate dinner in silence…

On 2020081620200816 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

We ate dinner in silence, both worn out,
But spicy Thai food woke us up again –
The dreaded day had come, and been born out,
Just like we thought it would, it had. But then

We drank and laughed and talked of other things.
She ate her massaman, I ate my beef;
There’re unexpected gifts life sometimes brings
When we are past all action but belief —

And as we left the place, I grasped her hand,
Which she squeezed back. No other words were said:
For lives are full of meanings, unexpressed —
Like living through a day
You’d come to dread

(11-7-2015)