Category: Poetry

A Kiss In My Hand

“Daddy,
Put a kiss in my hand,
And while you’re away I can hold it
Up to my cheek
And be happy
Knowing that you really love me”

“Daddy,
Here’s a kiss in your hand,
And while you’re away you can hold it
Up to your cheek
And I’ll give you
My love from a long way away”

My daughter is seven, but her love is much bigger than her size would suggest. She said this (ok, I’ve paraphrased) before I left home for a week, and here I am sitting on the other side of an ocean with my hand on my face and no one knows why.

In Appreciation Of Grey

It’s a synonym for uncertainty, for ageing, and depression. It’s no wonder that it never gets claimed as a favourite colour. It is camouflage for cars and clothes, blending in with crowds and concrete, proclaiming no happiness but not heavy enough for proper mourning, either. It’s not a storm, but still blocks the sun. It’s grey.

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Autumn

When my days here on Earth have come to an end
I want to go out like an Autumn leaf

Not like a flower, that gradually drops
Not like a tree, that inwardly rots

I want to go brighter than ever
As weakness takes hold, let glory shine through

And when strength finally fails, and falls to the ground
Let it fall on the promise of Spring

The Middle Years

My wife and I got married 15 years ago this week. Shortly after, I wrote a short poem for my new bride:

Are there seasons to love, new months and years bring?
If seasons there are, our love is the Spring
A sapling still budding, fresh fruit on the vine
With roots planted deep in the well of Divine

Must needs there be Winter? I haven’t a clue
My prayer is to always be growing the New
But seasons can come, and seasons can go
Our love will remain, it will always be so

Though slowly, yet surely, this oak of the Lord
Will grow up precisely as it has been told
Till stands in God’s garden a tree strong and true
That brings Him a smile as He’s passing through

I suppose it’s natural when you begin something to think of the ending. But there’s something else I didn’t think of so much back then, something we’re living a lot of right now. It’s something you might call “the middle”, or in the words of the poem, that “slowly, yet surely” bit. Saplings may be full of exciting potential, and mature oaks of awe-inspiring strength, but it’s the transformation from one to the other that accounts for the majority of the life of the tree. And our marriage.

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For Hannah Grace

This week twelve years ago, we should have been welcoming our firstborn child, but she wasn’t here. I’ve written about the day we found out about Hannah’s death in this post. This week, in honour of the daughter we haven’t met (yet), I’m sharing a poem I wrote shortly afterwards to process my thoughts about God and the death of a child.

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