Easter Poem For The Judges

Choices

At the center of the orchard
The old tree stands
Rejected beloved

Walls have grown
Deep down and tall
Cutting off both root and branch

Some still stand united, whole
Sharing soil and water
Separately together

The bitter selfish
Neither give nor take
But know they are the best of all

Light Poetry From A Loving Heart

Katie
My Katie
The girl of the bird
With the beautiful eye
Black glossy wings
A flashing of blue
Rushing of joy
For me and for you

Andrew
My Drew
My little boy blue
The cow's in the meadow
The sheep's in the corn
My love still here
And never foresworn

Rebecca
My Becca
My Beccachan you
For your precious art
Your sketched and you drew
Mine was my family
It's all that I do

Joshua
My Josh
Player of horns
Come break down the walls
Tear down the thorns
Be what you say

Blessed Am I, For I Deserve It

The original post:

https://mobile.twitter.com/kelssseyharmon/status/710257327031451648

One girl’s Tweet about having dinner with her grandfather is going viral and breaking hearts around the world because of its gut-wrenching backstory.

Kelsey Harmon, from Oklahoma, posted this photo of dinner with “Papaw”, saying that he’d invited his six grandchildren over but Kelsey was the only one to show up.
dinner with papaw tonight...❤️ he made 12 burgers for all 6 grandkids and I'm the only one who showed. 😢 love him

My response: I feel your pain, papaw, literally. Four of my grandchildren do this to me every holiday and every day because I wouldn't disown the rest of my children and grandkids in favor of them and their mom. In fairness to my beloved Lost Lambs, their mother, Four square copastor that she is, says I should obey her, my "true daughter". (The family she wanted me to disown may not be genetically mine, but ALL my children and grandchildren are mine; they are totally mine now and forever.)
Two of those 'not true' grandkids are spending the weekend and driving me crazy. They are real grandkids to me and I cherish every precious moment with them, their siblings, their cousins, their parents, their aunts, and all those my Prodigal Daughter wanted me to disown. And, yes, in spite of years of emotional neglect and abuse, I love my Prodigal Daughter and my neglectful Lost Lambs just as much.
No amount of neglect or hurtfulness will ever tarnish my love for all of my children and all of my grandchildren. I choose every single one, even when that choice brings suffering from the Pharisee branch of my family.

1 Col 13:4,13. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Please pray for my Prodigals. Their judgement and rejection of the family that loves them is a sickness that eats at their souls, even as they puff up with pride at their self declared piety.

Updated Comments:

I love you Poppy ! I'll always be your daughter

Dad I want to say that you are one of the strongest men I know your my hero ...you have been cast aside because of you loving us kids as your own ....even though we're not fruit of your loins we are fruit of your heart ... I'm appalled at the way you are being treated and how your lambs are lost ...I wish that they would wake up and find out what a wonderful father papa and poppy you could be if they would allow you too! I will promises you this ...I will never wonder ...I will never not be there for you as you have been as I when was a child and now ...I will never disrespect you forsake you or stay away ...I may not be your real daughter but I am your daughter .... Enough said Poppy ....I love you! I choose you all them years ago ....I knew you would be my perfect dad !


Me: The best love is love returned. Real family is the family that stands beside you and delights in your joys and carries you through your pain. Whatever the hurt caused by those who have abandoned us, the rest of us stand together and love together. You all keep me going, whatever strength I have, it is rooted in all of you.

Two Poems

3-7-16

Moment

Wet day, rainy day
Last fire of the season day
Mountains on the right
Hide behind the cloud walls
Mountains on the left
Bright and shady
Beneath their clouded crochet day
Bored dogs sleeping
Timeout keeping
Sun slipping under
Not breaking out day
Day to cherish those so near
Day to miss those self exiled
Those who held the pots together
Those who broke them to ostraka
Those who held the whole together
Those who wrote themselves away
I love you all day

Emancipation

Slaves enslaved
Caught and held and forced
True enough so far as it can go
Enslaved enforced by others
Enslaved enforced by God
Enslaved enforced by self
Cast out all the snakes
And leave the island open
For all the rats and shrews
To gnaw your heart and brain
I've always hated slavery
No matter who the slaver
It hurts the slave
It hurts the slaver
It does no one any good
No amount of gain
Is worth the loss of soul and self
When the slave enslaves himself
It's the saddest kind of all
All I have to buy your freedom
Is the love you will not take
That which has no value in your world
Is all I have to spend

Half A Poem

Short version for distribution

3-7-16

Moment

Wet day, rainy day
Last fire of the season day
Mountains on the right
Hide behind the cloud walls day
Mountains on the left
Bright and shady
Beneath their clouded crochet day
Bored dogs sleeping
Timeout keeping
Sun slipping under
Instead of breaking out day
I love you day

On Hearts And Valentine's Day

A poem for my four lost lambs on Valentine's Day. Not my best work, but heartfelt.

My body has a heart,
four chambers and that's all

There's another heart
tucked in my soul
The chambers there are numerous,
maybe endless;
I don't know

My body's heart
Is full of blood,
my soul's heart
partly empty

Chambers there
so full of love,
you'd think there was no room;
but there is always room,
as long as there is love

It hurts to have a hollow heart,
even partly so,
but better a painful, empty room
than one closed off;
filled with rubble and despair

There's always room for you
to come and fill my heart

2-9-16

As always, all my love. As always, I am here. Papa






Sent from my iPad

I Mourn The Lost

Oprah Winfrey, on the late show with Stephen Colbert, told the story of an aboriginal elder:

Actually, my favorite story is about an aboriginal grandfather who trying to teach his grandson what he calls the Song Line. Now I never heard of the Song Line, but that's what they believe; that they were sung into existence. And he's teaching the Song Line and he's watching his grandson as he's passing along the story of their ancestral 50,000-year-old history.  He says, "I have to pass these words onto my grandson, otherwise he won't know who he is." 

That to me is so true. That if you don't have your grandmothers and your mothers and your grand fathers telling you who you are, where you've come from, then you will be lost. And he says, "I have to pass this onto my grandson, so he will not be lost." 

My four lost grandchildren, I love you and always will.  You loss will always be mine.

 
Sent from my iPhone

On writing and family. We often hear about how terrible many kinds of artists have been as parents. I, even as a kid learning these things in school, felt that these could not be great men. What ever their accomplishments, they failed at the most basic of human tasks, taking care of your children.

As a writer, I write very little. For years it was due to putting my family first. Now it is a combination of that and my health. Family now does not impede my writing, except for my Prodigal Daughter, who wounds my heart and soul each and every day. I lose sleep and have had my health deteriorate stressing over my Lost Lambs. This makes me a better parent than so many artists, but it makes me a terrible artist. I produce far too little. I am not true to my art.

I do not excuse the artists, great and small, who neglected their families, but I understand them far better now. If they were not great men, they were great artists. I fear I am neither.

Sorry, but after the joy of Christmas Eve and the delight of a Christmas which turned out to be amazingly good, I am feeling down since I must mail gifts to my four little ones who live only an hour away. How my Prodigal Daughter can be so full of hate on Christmas, towards people who love her so much, eludes me, but so it is.

On that, let me note that Onna and James, both of whom she wants me to disown as a condition of seeing her and my Lost Lambs again, have never regarded her as a step sister. They grew up calling her, and still call her their sister. For a few months when she first tried to force them out of my life, they started calling her, for the first time ever, their step sister. It didn’t last. They love her too much, even when she is acting so abominably. They are back to referring to her as their sister. I seem to have managed to teach some of my children the value of love. I did something right.

Sorry to be so down, but so it is today. Remember the surprise and delight I had in having a joyful Christmas Eve and a wonderful family Christmas. Kids all over the place, noise, mess, presents to wrestle out of those horrible shrink wrap packages...well, you know a family Christmas. I loved it.

I wasn’t even upset by poor Alex's throwing up on the stairs and in front of the kitchen. I was worried about him, of course, but it wasn’t bad. He admitted he had sneaked a peanut butter cookie at another relative's house. He knows to avoid anything with peanuts, but when everyone else is enjoying a treat, it is so hard for a kid to accept that limit. He was fine, just an upset stomach. As soon as he threw up, he felt great. Ah, Christmas.

I remember as a custodian that the worst day of the year for those dreaded vomit calls from a desperate teacher was always the last day before Christmas vacation -- room parties and lots and lots of treats...

An addendum to Christmas Joy -- I forgot to mention that, while shopping at Target with Onna and Austin [oldest daughter and great grandson], I was looking for Christmas socks for my gift to Katie and Drew [the youngest of my Lost Lambs]. As we headed to checkout without having found any socks, Onna suggested we check the dollar bins. And there they were. Austin wanted a pair of socks with Santa on them, but I’d already bought several little things for him and Onna said no --Grandma holds the reins on Austin. But as I waited in the check out line I thought, why not? and hurried back over and grabbed a pair. It was only a buck, and Austin kind of liked them.

When we got home, I gave him the socks and he was ecstatic! When he went to bed , he refused to take them off--Austin always takes off his socks, even for a nap, but not his Santa socks. Such joy from such a tiny thing. Kids are wonderful. Grandkids are wonderful.