This piece was written for the December issue of our church's newsletter, Grace & Peace. One day a few years ago, I found myself sitting on the first floor of a doctor’s building, talking to a lady named Darlene. It was a few weeks before Christmas, and rain was blowing against the big windows, wet … Continue reading In the Waiting Room
For Joel & NatalieA Blessing for Their House May you live like you’re young in this house that’s older than you,old as the trees,old like the bell steeple on Main Street,and the railroad that runs with the river west to the town where Dad was born. May you not erase the aging lines of this place, which … Continue reading Remember
The cicadas have come, like a thousand sirens in the trees. I was ten last time they emerged from the ground en masse, littering the grass and molting on every tree. I was still wearing my brothers’ basketball shorts and running around sticking the bug shells on peoples’ shirts after church. I remember how we … Continue reading Year of the Locust
A True Story from Home Last February was gray and long, as the lean months before spring tend to be when winter feels old. But in my mailbox on Edgewood Road, there was something new: letters from Jared about what he hoped to plant in his garden that spring. He wrote of marigolds and tomatoes. … Continue reading When You Come Marchin’ Home
On Waiting, Hunting, & Courtship “Come back and see us,” she said. “We’ll be here.” And as we turned in our coats to go, she caught me once more: “And enjoy yourselves. Have fun.” This was just after she’d said she was bored of bingo, and couldn’t they offer more activities for the long, dark … Continue reading Late In Time
Autumn came, at first, like a man too fierce to get old, huffing and fuming like his leaf blower, hurrying hot wind, unsettled as a hurricane in the trees until, one afternoon, the last leaf fell, was raked, put away, and he settled into something long, cold, and sweeter.
I've learned he is not like the moon, thumb-printed by shadow one night, then full and yellow as a harvest, then gone altogether on the thirteenth of November. He himself cannot be tempted or tilted or touched by the shadows cast by something bigger, because he himself is that Sun, and we are the thing … Continue reading Equinox
In response to my Papa Larry's poem: "Just One More Time" Remember what Eliot wrote, that “What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present” And so your “have-beens” of driftwood fires near the sea Are, dear Papa, my present. Might I remind you-- Time is like the … Continue reading Always Present
bethanyjlincks.com 