Poetry

Not everyone likes poetry. I like some poets a lot — particularly Mary Oliver and William Stafford and Billy Collins. I play around writing poems every once and a while. I’ve got a sample of my efforts for you here. If they are not your thing, take heart — you didn’t have to read the ones that didn’t make the cut!

I Have One Good Thing

I have one good thing. 

One thing that was and is a gift of grace. 

One thing that stands outside the struggle for relevance, that doesn’t care about my bad moods. 

For years I thought there was something more. 

I thought I could say or do something to make things better. 

I left my good thing and searched, but mostly I missed it. 

The things I found were ok, but not good. 

I return to the one good thing and I am blessed. 

Then I set out again to see if losing it is a part of who I am. 

Punctuation

They say punctuation is important. 

There are grammar jokes on tee-shirts. 

“Let’s eat, grandma!” Commas save lives. 

But life is punctuated, too. 

Someone dies, and there is a comma where you take a deep breath. 

Or there is a sudden change, and everything on this new side of the dash — is totally different. 

There are times where each day seems bracketed by a parenthesis that keeps it separated from (normal) life. 

Luck enters in, and you find the outcome could be on either side of the slash: yes/no. 

The biggest scares deserve semicolons; we have to wait to see if they are really only commas in disguise. 

Very few events deserve Capitals, but we remember them well. 

It is the period that we fear. We all pray that the trinitarian God likes to turn one into three …

The Big Leagues

There is no caste system in America. 

After the tryouts, I made the team. 

I don’t know how. Everyone else was stronger, bigger, faster. They were better on the base paths. Smarter ball players. They all had better stats, and they looked sharper in their uniforms. 

I didn’t do anything embarrassing. 

I got a few singles, made a couple good plays at shortstop, but I did blow one easy grounder. 

Some people looked at me as though I didn’t belong — or was that just in my head? 

I tried to be a steady player. I didn’t want to go for the fences, because that wasn’t my strength. 

There were a few good games when I knocked in the winning run, or made the highlight reel. 

One season led to the next, and I was a veteran. 

But there was always a nagging feeling. Hitters that they talked about in the press. Trade rumors. 

Then one day her clothes were no longer in our closet. It was a sudden demotion to the minors. 

Traveling Solo

There are times when I am away and you are home. 

“I miss you,” I say, and you say “I miss you too.”

I may think of you during the day, and I may not. If I see something interesting, I often think, “I wish we could see this together.”

There are times when I feel quite lonely, and sometimes I cry. Then I think I’m a baby, and I need to buck up. 

This is practice. 

One of us will die. 

“I miss you,” I will say, and in my head you will say “I miss you too.”

I may think of you during the day, and I may not. 

Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks.