Love Remembers

December 3, 1950

The youngest of 4 boys, Jim grew up in a time and place where life on cotton mill wages was all he knew. Times were tough, but, he learned that family meant more than money. He was taught that people had value not because of what they had, but how they lived their lives. His father showed rather than told…he lived what he what he preached to his son.

That legacy lived on in the man I came to know as friend, lover, husband and grandfather. He was not perfect, but he never expected more of others than he was willing to give of himself.

From the Chorus of Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man”:

And he bowed his head to Jesus

And he stood for Uncle Sam

And he only loved one woman

(He) was always proud of what he had

He said his greatest contribution

Is the ones you leave behind

Raised on the ways and gentle kindness

Of a small town Southern man

(Raised on the ways and gentle kindness)

(Of a small town Southern man)
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Happy Birthday to my own small town Southern man…you will always be loved.

Spirals

More challenging than anticipated and aided by external forces, this year’s remembrance time took me to that dark place I do not care to go. While the bottom seems not so far as it once did, the struggle to regain balance has been tiring both to me and the dear man who shares this new life. Bless him for his patience with my mood.

Rather than go on about conjectures, why’s, wherefore’s, etc…this just sort of bubbled up today.

I’ve not written poetry in quite some time. I’m not entirely sure this qualifies now. It has no title, but the graphic comes from a book I’ve read.

spirals within
spirals
within spirals
curling, twisting
one
upon the other

whirlpools
drawing
down into
darkness
To hell
and back

time over time
war weary
battle honed
still they pull
and twist

writhing snakes
coiled within coils
slithering,
twisting
hissing

calling
down
deep
into mysts
of time
and
memory past

sunlit mornings
ebon nights
dreams
unbidden
in unguarded sleep

unsparing
The road
To light
And color

twisted path
rutted stone
tangled vine
trip
and scrape
the wound
open wide

bone and sinew
thread and needle
whip gaping edges
tight
against the flow

fire, ember
ash, flame
lightning flash
sulphured air

tremble
stirring life
where none should grow
phoenix rises
wings widespread

talons flared
grasping sky
past darkness
loosed

Grief
fallen
broken, charred
clay bits
zephyred dust

waiting only
dark spirals of
sorrow’s rain
born again
to battle light.

I Remember

May 24, 2002.

Etched forever.

May 24, 2008.

6 years.

Always loved...Always remembered.

What else is there to say?