Poetry is a way of life and life an ever changing, never ending poem. A poet cannot help but take his pen in hand and record life's joys and sorrows; while life continues on, blissfully unaware of the need for metrical pattern or imagery, yet creating it on a day to day basis whether in limerick, elegy or sonnet. It's all there for the taking.
Life is but a gravel path occasionally strewn with flowers.
The sun's above, the earth below; there's sunshine, shadow and showers.
Have I always been a poet? I think so. The first poem I remember writing was in the fifth grade. We were asked, as a homework project, to submit lyrics for a song which would be performed in the school's Easter program. My lyrics were chosen and put to music by the teacher. I wish I still had a copy of that song, but it didn't seem important enough to keep at the time. I'm sure I wrote other poems as I grew up, but I don't remember them. It wasn't until I left school, married, and began a family that I began to really see the shadows and the showers of life. It was then that I began my journal of personal poems which was, for me, a catharsis.
We realize that each new day is fresh, but fraught with challenge...
To climb the hills and mountain tops and still maintain our balance,
To wander lost on unknown roads, then seek and find our way,
To run or jump or speed along...or stumble day by day.
Our first child, David, born at Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Ga, was a trial to a young 19 year old mother with no one to turn to for guidance; but oh, what a ray of sunshine as he grew. Our second child, Russell, was different, very different. He never learned to sit alone, never learned to crawl, and could only drag himself along by his elbows. He never spoke beyond "Mama" or "Dada". The doctors at Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts said he was retarded, but they didn't do any tests of any kind. Russell died at 23 months. I withdrew inside myself, afraid, wondering if it had been my fault somehow. My husband missed his wife and David missed his mother.
That's when the soft sand of youth turned to the rocky gravel path of adulthood and my running in barefoot innocense was gone forever. I didn't quite know how to ease the pain. It was then I picked up pen and paper and began to find myself again, trying to find some rhyme or reason to what had happened, by rhyming words and phrases. I wrote about my children. I wrote about myself. I wrote about a loving God because I couldn't believe that He would have set me on this path and spread the way with stones to cause me pain.
With Heaven's door a step away, but just beyond our grasp,
We hold on strong to Hope and Love, and Faith which must not lapse.
I see the ever growing glow... the Light I wish to meet,
If I could but rush to Him... but I've stones beneath my feet...
I've stones beneath my feet!
It took about a year for me to get myself together again and function as a living, breathing human being, but somehow I found my way. And then, what do you know, by the end of the second year David had a little sister, Peggy Sue. What a beautiful little angel God had sent to take Russell's place. But wait... she's not sitting up by herself, not until she was a year old. But she did it! Thank God she did it! But wait... she's not standing on her own. We'd better check it out.
This time the doctors took notice and decided to run some tests. Peggy Sue had, what they then diagnosed as, Werdnig-Hoffman's disease. When I entered the room to hear the doctor's diagnosis, I found another person there, a representative of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I listened as they told me my daughter might not live past six or seven years of age, but MDA would be there to help in any way they could. And they were.
I've traveled far since first I trod this gravel path of life,
Through many roadblocks, large and small, I've handled pain and strife.
I've walked through storms and flooding streams, always moving on,
I've walked through sunlight bright and warm, and rainbows looked upon.
Okay, so this is what the rest of your life is going to be like. Get used to it. Get on with it. Make the best of it. Teaching Peggy how to stand, we wrapped magazines around her legs and secured them with Ace bandages while we waited for that first set of leg braces to be made. Later, we watched as she took her first steps in the real braces and learned to use the tiny little crutches. She took it all in stride and "made the best of it", always continuing to smile.
The clouds broke and a rainbow appeared when our fourth child was born, another son, Fred. Little Freddie was healthy and lively and about as normal as any child could be. Maybe the path was becoming a little smoother. And then my husband went to Vietnam.
I've seen injustice, hate, and war, disease, and constant fear.
And where the worst of these held on, the Savior hovered near,
Protecting, healing, loving all, and whispering to "Come..."
"Come, let me take you home again. Come, let me take you home."
I see the ever growing glow and when the Light I meet,
He'll take me in His arms and sweep these stones from 'neath my feet...
these stones from 'neath my feet!
Year six came and Peggy was still with us, acting as the State Poster Child for MDA in Nebraska while we were stationed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha. Year seven came and went as Peggy served as National Poster Child for MDA and was able to travel all across the country acting as their goodwill ambassador.
In 1973 we were transferred to Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. I had begun to drift away from my husband's love even before he went to Vietnam. I'd met a man in Omaha whom I loved but could not have. Now, in Virginia, I allowed other men to enter my life as well. Now I wrote about the death of love and the birth of new love, about lost love and unattainable dreams, about love that should have been and love that never was.
Many times the stones along the gravel path of life have hurt my feet and the pain, almost unbearable, was only eased by the fragrant scent of a newly opened rose peeking through the briars along the edge of the road, and the sight of that distant glow on the far horizon. Many times I've lost my way, stumbling, trying to catch my balance, and stopped beneath some shady bower to take a deep breath, gather my thoughts, and put them down on paper. This is my poetry, my life, my lifeline, the silver cord which keeps me anchored to myself and to my faith. It's where I go to sort my thoughts, to write the things I cannot say, to wish away the hurt, to dream the impossible dream, to express my love of God, my children, of people I've known, of all creation.
He'll set my feet on grassy paths where soft the heather grows.
He'll hold me close and comfort me with a love like no one knows.
His voice will sing like violins played by ancient masters.
His eyes will shine and sparkle bright with mirth and joyful laughter.
Peggy graduated from high school, and has worked full-time for one government agency or another ever since, currently with NASA. Her original diagnosis was wrong and was eventually changed to Infantile Spinal Muscular Atrophy, one which placed no real limit on her ever fragile life. Although she's been in a wheelchair, permanently, since Jr. High School, she was able to drive her own specially equipped van for many years before finally giving it up.
My firstborn, David, strong, loving and protecting, lives today with his sister Peggy and her husband Eric in Hampton, Virginia. Fred, his wife Alice, and my grandson John live just five doors down from the others. They are now, and have always been, a very close and supportive group, and children any mother would be proud to call her own.
I've divorced, remarried and am soon to retire and move to Florida, back into the sunshine of life. I can't help but think, though, that the sun has always been shining on my life, even though some days were cloudy and some rain did fall and the road I walked was rough.
Had He really placed me on this path? Now, looking back, I think He did. This earth plane is, after all, a classroom... and I had a LOT to learn.
My poetry? My poetry is my life. I don't know how else to say it. And, if I never sold or published one line of it, I'd still go on writing it as long as there's a path to follow and the Light to look forward to.
He'll show me friends and loved ones there who've gone along before me.
His wondrous Name we'll all proclaim in songs of love and glory.
He'll rub my feet with oil so sweet... His tender touch will heal.
No more life's corns and calluses or blisters will I feel.
I see the ever growing glow... His Light makes me complete.
The gravel path is far below... and no stones beneath my feet...
no stones beneath my feet!
