Hopeful

When I was young, did I even listen to me?
Sometimes I heard and sometimes I listened to some, and sometimes to me.
I heard and tucked far back, because it hurt to listen, to hear.
And now in the stillness of the nights, I listen and observe.
The words are soft, and the silent movements fill the words in greater ways.
They shuffle in some days, and I see so many words in their eyes.
The words fall from my pens, and the letters seem to be to me,
or written to someone who once was me.
Who is there left to read these words today?
Do they care?
Do I care today?
I do care, and I write these words for me and for my sons.
And for sons and daughters I know, but miss most days.
Where are they today?
The words press on me in these…

Today we are celebrating the 80th birthday of June Jentz, my mother-in law.  Happy birthday!

Mother June, Sister June

Of mothers lost and mothers found,
and love learned and lived,
I found mother June in my life.
In decades past, and in days recent,
she took me in her house just as I am
a wanderer, a drifter, a disciple.
When I was single, alone, and coughing in fever,
she put me up, put up with me,
and fed me just as I was.
She has connected us with the saints in our times, reluctant but
stable and solid in good times and hard times,
and connects the times through ages known.

A sister of sisters and mother of daughters,
she gathered in sons, husbands of daughters,
and a husband, she held, a best friend forever.
She has been a hostess of families, friends and clans,
a center of the…