A Mystery

I have been wondering how to write a book,
Wishing for a plot.
Poems flow out without forethought,
Often clarifying my ideas as I write.

I woke early one morning
To broken glass covering the floor and my bed.
Strangely, it was not sharp shards, but tempered glass.
Where had it come from?

I went to turn on the kitchen lights,
But nothing happened.
This terrified me.
Then I woke up for real.

That would make a good mystery:
A broken windshield in the bedroom,
Malfunctioning lights …
But after such a promising beginning,

Nothing further suggests itself.

Provision

When Phil left to drive to the abattoir,
He had a bad feeling.
Shortly after he left, the boys and I prayed.
We had prayed at breakfast. We prayed again.

Before Phil left our road,
The side mirror fell out and shattered.
That was his only way to see behind,
As the rearview mirror is useless with the trailer.

He found an old rearview mirror
Among the detritus in the truck,
And a single piece of baling wire, and two zip-ties.
He tied this makeshift mirror on, so he would have some mirror behind.

It rained all the way up, but the cows were delivered.
On the way home, the engine for the windshield wipers
Suddenly exploded,
At the same time the cloudburst renewed its fury.

Large, unwieldy dually without power steering,
Towing a large cattle trailer,
On a busy road with no shoulder,
In an unknown part of town.

Already stressful. Now, literally, zero visibility.
I can only imagine the terror of that moment.
We stand amazed that he didn’t die.
Once safely parked, he did call me to come and get him.

So I drove the hour and a half to find him,
Through torrential rains,
Phone about to die,
Not entirely sure where I was going.

I expected we would leave the truck and trailer,
And return again tomorrow.
Except rain is forecasted for the foreseeable future.
A temporary break in the rainfall allowed us to caravan slowly home.

So was our prayer answered? Yes.
He was safe.
The cows reached their destination.
And apart from a three hour stress, we are all unscathed.

Loading Animals

Our chute is makeshift: a few cattle panels and gates,
Cobbled together with rope and baling wire.

I have post-traumatic stress about the time
We tried to load the pig,
And we had constrained it and constrained it until it seemed like
There was nowhere else for it to go but in the trailer
When it stuck its nose under the fence I was
Standing on
And escaped.

So today when the three cows came towards the trailer
And turned around in a tight space,
I knew I was the weak link.
Stressed animals, their horns inches away,
Desperately contorting to turn around,
To escape this strange confinement
And to avoid the dark cave at the end.

Would this end in the animals running free?
Quite possibly.

Did I mention it was raining?

We four humans stood in the rain, dripping, stressed,
As we tried again and again to get the third animal in the trailer.

Finally we gave up for another day,
And were thankful for the two we had loaded successfully.

Model Grief

Our friend came to visit, now a month into grief.
He loved his wife. He misses her.

Yet he is still so entirely himself,
Still so matter-of-fact,

Yet overlaid with a new compassion,
With a penetrating vision of the task God has before him,

It gives me hope that the grief I have hoped was possible
Is actually attainable.

“We do not grieve as others who have no hope.”
I have seen this modeled.

An Assassin's Response

At thirteen, girls can be unpredictable.
Those nicknamed “assassin,” perhaps more so.

Her father feared the response
When the time came to tell that her mother was gone.

Ecstatically: “Mommy is with Jesus now!”
Then: weeping.

It was all that a parent could hope for.
Thanks be to God.

Perfect Children

Years ago, I heard a phrase:
“If you’re not a perfect parent,
But you want perfect children….”

I think of that statement now with horror.
What kind of parent demands perfection of their children?
What crushing religious system would offer that expectation?

Connections

I do not conjure up dates and times on my own.
But somehow, I will think,
“I should check the score”
And it happens to be the final eight seconds when the team wins.

Or I will think,
“Was this around the time that a CD was released?”
And I will go back to find that, yes,
My future friend did release a CD on this date, and I was there.

Or I will think,
“What was I doing a week ago this week?”
And the calendar will show the visitors who came,
And so I remember an anniversary or a trauma.

I think God makes these connections for me,
As a way to remind me that I am connected with my community.