fireflies, image by nini kvaratskhelia, on Pixabay, modified
The Gift
At your birth
You were so fresh
From heaven
You showered us
With His radiance
I gathered
Those drops of glory
And stored them
Like fireflies
In a jar.
Their shining never fails
To light my way
When the path
Grows dark
*
The Last Song
For the first time
another voice, not mine
sang you to sleep
to a longer night
than we have known.
For the first time
other arms
lifted you from sleep
to banish night
with endless dawn.
“Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God
belongs to such as these” (Luke 18:16).
*
Vanquished
I struggled with the beast of sleep,
raked with claws, slashed with fangs,
it was a bloodless pain.
“The battle is the Lord’s,”
she said.
Stillness, ineffable light
and the beast became a Lamb
and lay beside me
and I slept.
“He who finds a wife finds a good thing
And obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).
*
Road of Shadows
There is a road
On the south side of this wilderness
And light falls through the trees
And settles upon it
In pools of burnt gold
Crossed by shadows
At the far end
You can see that pure light
An eternal brightness and comfort
I stand now and gaze
Toward that far end
Of this old, old road
My grandfather who preached
A pure gospel long ago
And was ridiculed for it
His wife
My quilt stitched by her arthritic hands
Her stories drifting back from my childhood
Stands next to him
In summer blaze
Or winter’s hard and unforgiving cold
My father and I worked together, building,
He smiles down at my mother
Who rarely spoke an unkind word
Against anyone she ever knew
Their smiles are as pure as that eternal light
As they turn toward me
My soul longs for them
But my granddaughter’s laughter
Is a silver cord, pulling me
And there is work to be done
That day has not yet come
For me
(This poem was previously published in Robert Funderburk’s chapbook, Light Eternal.)
____________________________________________
Robert Funderburk was born by coal oil lamplight
in his home near Liberty, Mississippi, graduated
from Louisiana State University in 1965, and served
as Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force from 1965
to1971. He now lives with his wife, Barbara, enjoying
the peace of home on fifty acres of wilderness in
Olive Branch, Louisiana.
Such lovely poems, Bob.