In transit

Mercy flavored coffee begs a deafening advance
and pretends a bigger end than is planned

late and touching passion that divides into a curse
Platonic kind of lovers holding hands until it hurts

Placid kind of friction totaled into yesterday
and dividing those that conquer by the choices that they've made

When you find it hard to breath
You will find it hard to speak
then you will find it hard to leave this one alone

Clarity

You got that sweet smile 
steeped-well taste


You got that hazed-blue,
got you face


You got that good try,
bad guy make




the bottle has spoken to me
the cupid persisting to lead
Sometimes a bonds got you free
Baby, Don't tattle tell on me




You got your smoke screen
Eyes winked black


You got the walled-wake,
pains-baked back


You got the blistered,
embitter mask




the bottle has spoken to me
the cupid persisting to lead
Sometimes a bonds got you free
Baby, Don't tattle tell on me!




You got the daylight,
chide eyed scorn


You got the chapped past,
stead-fast thorn


You got the dark-cloud
skies-loud storm


Sometimes a bonds got you free
Baby, Don't tattle-tell on me
Baby, this jokes told on me...
Baby, this jokes told on me...


Bridge:
And nobody's runnin you through
And I don't know what to do
repeat...

Aunt Jean... Life-lines and Legacies...

   Aunt Jean… logical, hardworking, sensible, practical… winsome, lovely, athletic and calculating… I suppose we all could think of adjectives that would accurately caricature Jean Zirkle at any one point in time along her journey. She girded up the Zirkle’s, arranged the becoming Hague’s, and entreated herself to the Augsburger’s! The last girl of a large clan, Aunt Jean developed a sensitivity and stature that would serve her well over the course of a long commitment to ministry and family…

   81 years and an obituary with a newspaper-limit can muffle off a few accomplishments without ever appreciating the real enduring contributions that a person leaves behind – that Jean left behind. Hers is not an edifice or an endowment, not a bible store or a bike ride – we are her legacy and she was our life-line.

She devoted so much care an attention to our details constantly bugging us about our bills and choices; our friendships and loves; our notions of conservatism and whether or not we were eating well. “You are too skinny”. “You are just trying to get out of work”. “Money doesn’t grow on trees”. “The Bible is not just about Genesis”. She adapted and became for us what we needed when we needed it, saying what she thought regardless of how it might come across.

   Though I have many friends who would grow tired of the stories that were told about war-time, the happy 50’s and so on and so forth. She had a way with her stories, these personal-bits: momma making underwear ‘cause there was no money for it; daddy dying in the factory and leaving us to defend for ourselves; baseball with a stuffed cloth and a stick; imaginations ignorant of boredom; a 25 dollar prize for daring a big-rig bike ride; sisters and brothers fighting over principle; Bible school and Erma; Ministry and Baptists; gossip and gossip that could never dissolve their commitment to the local church; Uncle Ivan’s visits; Mom and Dad, before they grew to love each other; Uncle Richard and the toilet lid; baseball news and church drama somehow proverbial in nature… Stories and stories with big moments and morals…

   These and countless others are the messy-tales told with truisms that have given us all a more attuned perspective to the way things are. After all life is not fair, and whether or not you like your situation you have got to play the hand you are dealt. Her contributions are pent up in her commitments – her commitments to people. No matter how annoying or intolerant or misunderstood, family is family, friends are friends and at some point you learn to love them or risk living without them.

   May God be praised! Here’s to a Christian woman who lived well! May her memory be blessed.