As we look back on 2017 and forward to 2018, it’s easy to become both nostalgic and hopeful.

During one of my nostalgic times, as I reflected upon those who are with the Lord, I wrote the following poem.  As Anne Bradstreet and other poets have said, publishing a poem is like sending a child out into the world.  It is imperfect, limping in its meter, and could be improved upon in countless ways.  But I pray you will judge it kindly and that, perhaps, it will cause you to stop, remember the people God gave you at the most formative times in your life, give thanks for their influence, and resolve to emulate them in ways that will glorify God and edify others.

I wish you a blessed 2018!

 

We Can’t Go Back

We can’t go back
Into the arms that rocked us while we cried,
Or wiped away our sniffles or life’s crises.

We can’t go back
To hear those stories told by old, old friends
That made us feel we fit somehow in something bigger than ourselves.

We can’t go back
To hear those voices that soothed us,
To feel those arms enfold us–
Always accepting and welcoming without hesitation.

But we can smell their closeness when we close our eyes,
Recall the timbre of their voices, sense their lips brushing past our ears
Or feel again–just for an instant–their assurance that all is well;

Then gather strength to stand and BE that one we miss;
To be that one whose void lives after our strength and stories fade—
For we, like they, made one life precious at a time.

SBJ
2/23/13

(Final version Dec. 29, 2017—When thinking of my Great-grandmother, Grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, Louise Connell, Pearl Wilkins, Miss Sarah, DLH, Joyce Parks, and a long list of others who invested themselves in my life and showed me how to love God and others from my childhood until God took (or takes) them Home).