Golden Days

           

   H  How can one hope to ever present, 

   A  All that’s happened, event to event?      

   P  Pretty high school girl, Winton Woods “date.”

   P  Pretty Tennessee bride, life’s soul mate.

   Y  Young marriage?  Yes.  God, His wisdom sent.

 

 F  Finances were often super tight

 I  In spite of work and homemaker’s might.

 F  Finished (always wed) B. A. degree,

T  Teaching Hobe’s literature was to be.

I  It introduced us to the sea’s sight.

E  Eventually, teaching changed a bit,

T  The Bible became more life’s great “hit.”

H  Helping prepare workers for the field,

 

W  Wishing to increase the Master’s yield,

E  Ended in Friendsville – God’s timing fit.

D  Dining, other duties tired my wife,

D  Dual/triple “chores” consumed my own life.

I   In eighty-five pulled out for AK:

N  New roads, tent, campsites filled every day,

G  God’s given pleasures, only slight strife.

                 

  A  Andrew, Lincoln, Laura, and Heather

  N  Nested in Bryan’s nest together.

  N  Nice to each other, nice to Mom, Dad,

 I  In times when little was all we had.

 V  Vacations? – with long or short tether.

 E  Eventually each sought/found a mate.

 R  Rightly, their finds would be hard to rate,

 S  Seventeen “grands” bless Martha and me,

 A  A few near, but most “over the sea.”

 R  Rich we are – this side heaven’s grand gate.

 Y  Yield (all!) so you’ll live beyond the blue.

   

 B  Babe, you’re good for me, hope me you.

 A  Always ‘member, I’ve loved you always.

 B  Blessings on our own fiftieth days.

 E  “Edgar and Martha,” happy “young” two.                  

  – eab,6/23/11

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DUSKING DARK

A cedar against a pink-lavender sky,

In the space between the neighboring oaks,

The silhouetted bird flies by,

The crickets sing an evening song,

A lowly cow lows, the day is closed,

While along the horizon

The pink fades and goes.

Sights and sounds the heart and mind

Senses but lets them slip.

A day is closing as others closed,

Slowly slithering beyond our grip,

The pink has departed;

Now the trees stand dark and still,

Black trees on a gray-blue sky,

As tree frogs “che che” at will.  [1]

          – eab, 10/75          

 

 

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[1] First fall in Friendsville, Tennessee (Blount County)

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FALL

Fall, that most brilliant of seasons,

With an aroma all its own,

Has for various reasons

On my affections grown.

 

It’s partly all the color;

Red?  No, reddish brown?

Orange?  It’s one or the other,

That leaf that just fell down.

 

And it’s partly the falling leaf;

A twirl, a spin, a sliding drop;

A sky dive, Oh, so brief

With the slightest clatter of a stop.

 

And it’s also that “fally” odor;

Corn in shock, ear on stem,

Leaves when they’re walked over,

As you crunch your way through them.

 

A major part, I must admit

Is school; a bell, a book;

A different room in which to sit,

To listen, learn, and look.

 

And – I might as well be honest,

I like pumpkin pie, a little squash;

All the nuts the trees rain on us.

And Delicious, Jonathan, and McIntosh.

 

Fall’s nice warm days and cool nights,

That hazy, smoky distant view,

The full autumn moon that on us lights,

Those are truly reasons, too.

 

Oh, I know that fall must terminate

To winter; it is only just.

But I’ll enjoy autumn before it’s too late,

For enjoying fall is a must.

          – eab, 10/75

Written while pastoring Christ Church-Bible Methodist, Friendsville, TN.

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IN A NUTSHELL

Upon a tree with serrated leaf, I found,

A fresh nut growing, smooth and round.

It had grown all summer, at its best,

But September still found it far from rest.

Its shape was right, its form – “No sweat.”

But maturity it was striving for, and

Hadn’t reached there yet.

Its size told that, a little small,

Give it time, “Rome wasn’t built in a fall.”

Its color also revealed its youth,

Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t uncouth.

It just lacked the brown of Autumn’s tone,

The pastel acorns claim for their own.

I’m sure given time it will be just right,

Big, full-fruited, sealed “Tupperware”-tight,

Grown-up color, maturity’s stroke,

The future, miniature, enduring oak.

But this morning, it’s not ready for all that,

Growing feet above the forest floor mat.

This morning it’s ready to be youthful and green,

To stick by its place and flourish unseen.

 

I’ve expressed in part what I felt to tell,

Youth to maturity – in a nutshell. 

                                       Farewell.     

 – eab, 9/76

 Written while I working with Christ Church – Bible Methodist, Christ College and Christ Academy in Friendsville, TN, but on a visit to Cincinnati.

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LIFE ABOVE SIN

Thank You Lord,

For Thy salvation plan,

The glorious privilege,

You have given man

To live above sin.

 

The privilege of moving

Forever out,

Of the quicksand traps

Of fear and doubt,

That man was born in.

          – eab, 7/76

Written while pastoring in East Tennessee, Blount Co, Friendsville

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SEA SIDE BREAKFAST

Come, leave your night of toiling

On the boisterous “boiling,”

Of an open-faced sea.

Come, leave the laborious net,

And the fish you DID get,

By simply obeying Me.

 

Come and dine; be ye filled,

‘Tis your Master who has willed,

A meal for weary men.

Come now, and be refreshed,

Far more than you had guessed

Possible while in sin.

                – eab, 7/80

Written while pastoring Christ Church-Bible Methodist, Friendsville, TN.

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Talent

Define this thing called talent.

Describe its dimensions please.

Does it come in large and small sizes?

Like holes in Swiss-like cheese.

 

God gives to each man one.

But what if He gave him two?

Or three or half a dozen –

Sorting’s a job to do.

 

What if the talents seem to counter?

If they both cannot be done,

Yet both were given by God –

Both have a right to run. 

          – eab, 6/84 

Penned while pastoring Christ Church – Bible Methodist, Friendsville, TN.

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Why Spring?

The grand Lord knew, after the white and the blue,

Of the cold, crisp fortnights of chill,

After stark star lights and short day sights,

And iced-over bridges at the bottoms of the hill,

After sleet’s solid rain and the snow flakes again,

And the humdrum of life in confinement;

That man needed to sing – he needed spring –

The Lord’s annual perfection of refinement.   -eab, 3/29/80

Penned in Friendsville, Tennessee, located in western Blount Co.

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Final Victory

Lord, You’ll have to defeat the devil. 

We don’t have the strength.

We can’t do it alone, we can’t do it at length.

Lord, You’ll have to defeat the enemy,

Time and time again,

But there’s coming a day,

O glorious day,

When the battle will end.

 

There’s a the battle will end,

For the blood-washed of all ages,

The simple and the sages,

The kings and their pages.

There’s a final victory coming,

When the battle will be won.

Trials will end, Christ will descend,

The Father’s Redeeming Son.  – eab, 3/78

Written in Friendsville, Blount County, Tennessee. 

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A Shell of a House

While on a walk down a deserted track,

Pursuing so far and about to turn back,

My eyes beheld in the midst of a field,

A scene, that to my mind did yield,

Visions of days long passed, of yore,

Imagination supplied the details of “before.” ^[1]

 

Gone are the boys who slid the stair rail,

The man who returned with the ivory-brimmed pail.

Gone are the boys who read by the fire,

Pumping answers from their reading sire.

Gone is the fair miss, whose smile was near heaven,

The mother whose bread was fluffy with leaven.

 

And gone is the bride from this portal, to her own,

Light heartily laughing, a lady full grown.

Gone are the moments of sorrow and pain,

As are the blissful hours of lawful gain.

Gone are the moments of twinkle and mirth,

Shared by mortals who’ve passed from this earth.

 

The candle lights the study nevermore.

The flickering flames dance not on the floor.

The wood is decayed – the wall is rent,

The windows are gone, the roof is bent.

The shell of a house lies cold in the sun,

Its usefulness over, its story all run.

 

And only the mind sees the scenes of the past,

Realizing that memories alone will last.  -eab 2/79

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^[1] Was out thinking and praying along old RR track west of Friendsville, Tennessee (near old quarry where we got a fair amount of dead and/or down wood) and my imagination caught these sights. 

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