I wrote poems as an homage to both my father and my mother soon after their passing and someone mentioned to me that I should give these poems a home here. They are after all, storytelling.
Writing these poems soon after their passing, gave me meditative time to look back over the lives of my parents, to acknowledge the blessings of being raised by them, to appreciate the lessons they taught me and to find healing. I encourage you to do the same, when the time comes for a loved one of yours to leave this life and you find an ache in your heart that needs healing.
I wrote these in simple rhyming verse, because to my parents, it wasn't a poem if it didn't rhyme.
MY FATHER
Born to a surety of purpose,
Tied to the land and its rhyme
Living in endless concert with
Mother Nature and old Father Time.
Though sometimes very challenging,
A station of grace and demand
A constant companion to animals
And a steward of the land.
Relying on the cycles of nature,
Seemingly random though
A divine intelligence orchestrates
Each sunburst, cloudburst and snow.
Born in the Great Depression
Frugality deeply ingrained
His collections stand as testament
To the birthright that never waned
In his well worn workshop
With ingenuity, mallet and wrench
He welded and wired and nailed and patched
From the post of his oil soaked bench
In his quiet role as provider
For so many in his life
Most blessed were his three children
And his dedicated wife.
He ‘saw the little sparrow fall’
And crafted from this and that
Protective shelters everywhere
Of avian habitat
Tied to the cycle of seasons,
He drew clues from subtle signs
That many tend to overlook
In nature’s wise designs
Spring brought a daily surveyance
From the perch of a steely horse
Of the lay of his stretch of acres
And the power of nature’s force
Hours and hours behind the wheel
Turning the heavy ground
Working the land where he lived his whole life
Furrow to furrow, round and round.
And from the promise of tiny seeds,
Thrust tenacious shoots through clay
Waiting for summer’s golden warmth
To yield bounty of grain and hay.
Then with the bloom of summer
His spirits would lift each day
And he told me one of his favorite things
Was the smell of fresh mown hay.
On balmy summer nights he’d sleep
Away from the urban sky
Where a symphony of cricket and frog
Are natures’ lullaby.
Then gazing south across the fields,
Through leaves in fiery blaze
White caps on gray Lake Erie
Heralded snowy days.
Under the flight path of geese,
The ring of saw and ax
Cut the silence of the woodlot
Yielding cords of warmth in stacks.
Winter arrived and the land grew harsh
But it’s meant to be nature’s gift,
An enforced reprieve from working the land
A span of rest and shift.
And for a time he loved to fill
Cold nights with guitar and song
Accompanied by whoever
He could coax to play along.
A season of turning inward
And changing daily routine
Until the winds of spring would again
Bring a promising burst of green.
And once again there would begin
That gentle tug disarming
And he would dance the subtle dance
With nature that is farming.
The man who spoke when we laid him to rest
Counseled us that meekness,
Is not to be thought of as many suggest
It is often mistaken as weakness
The true meaning of that virtue
Is ‘power under control’
And that’s one of the traits I’ll remember most
About my father’s soul.
S. Barnhart
MY MOTHER
My mother was a nurturing soul
Domesticity was her bliss
Her gardens, and baking and needlework
Were evidence of this.
The first little girl born into the house
A birthday gift for her Dad
Soon a sister and brothers and boarders as well
Filled the rooms of the home they had.
As a girl she especially loved to skate
She'd stay out until the moon rose
Flying in freedom across the ice
Ignoring her frozen toes.
Then a country man came calling
And for him she changed her life
She married and moved to the countryside
And became a farmer’s wife.
I’m sure there were numerous challenges
But love must have been a factor
Because I will tell you, before very long
Photos prove she was driving a tractor.
Creating a comfortable nurturing home
Was where her talents lay
Flowers and food and a quiet mood
Enticed visitors to stay.
She found great joy in gardening
In the blush of a New Dawn rose
Delphinium, lupines and lilacs
Elderberries for pies she froze.
She avidly studied botanical things
How to turn pink hydrangeas to blue
Why roses love garlic as well as sunshine
It seemed her green thumbs just knew
And when winter crept in with those low gray skies
The way the sky on the Great Lakes looks
She would mulch her gardens and put them to bed
And take refuge in gardening books.
Knitting and crocheting on long winter nights
From her deft needles there grew
More than a hundred afghans for brides
And bonnets and booties too.
When not working with needles or crochet hooks
She would sit at the piano and play
And for a while that’s the way she would spend
The end of a busy day.
For a time she would visit a nursing home
And her musical hands would enhance
The lives of the residents there--some started to sing
And some even attempted to dance.
She showed her care by sharing and giving
To family and friends at large
And many there were that asked time after time
For the tarts baked with love by Marj.
She raised her three children with care and concern
And was often heard to say
That later in life, while one stayed close to the nest
The others moved too far away.
In the sunroom Dad built they would often sit
And take simple pleasure there
Gazing out towards the silvery lake
From the ease of a rocking chair
They would revel in nature’s theater
Over bucolic fields of hay
And watch the cats out hunting mice
And the spotted dogs at play
The blur of a nervous humming bird
A legislature of birds on the wire
The finches feasting upside down
Or the trill of a feathery choir
They would sit and ponder what to plant
Or what a crop would yield
While watching the neighbor’s horses
Gallop across the field
They’d have a little chuckle when hearing
The donkey’s insistent bray
As if no one would pay attention
To what he had to say
She accepted the challenges her mate would leave
In a basket or pail by the door
An organic offering of what he had found
On the land and not from a store
She tried her hand at churning butter
And gloved, made nettle tea
And peeled bushels of sour apples
From a gnarly apple tree
He would pick her mushrooms from the field
But she thought that the chances were slim
That they would not be poisonous
Though she did cook them for him!
She fashioned many pink bouquets
From corn husks dried and dyed
And learned to candle and handle eggs
And stacked cords of wood outside.
Her feet were always a challenge
During life, especially later
And she told me if she could have done anything
She'd have been a figure skater.
Then after fifty five years of being
A daily partner and wife
The routines of comfort and love of that
Gave way to great sadness in life
On the day that her dearest drew his last breath
There began a great void in her life
She had never been ever alone before
Always daughter or mother or wife.
Alone in the quiet old farmhouse
Without the family and babble
She staved off loneliness by welcoming friends
For tea or a round of Scrabble.
I found a little notebook of Mom’s
And I opened it and read
“Wisdom is knowledge acted upon”
And that was all it said.
From the way that she lived her life
This is what I have come to know
This is my mother’s legacy
And by example she managed to show
The wisdom of choosing your path
And steadfastly seeing it through
Doing your very best every day
At whatever you’ve chosen to do.
The words of the man who stood and spoke
When we laid her body to rest
Included a verse from Hebrews
And seemed to describe her life best
Her confidence in the hereafter
Was strong and had always been
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for
The evidence of things not seen”
S. Barnhart
