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Honest to God
a rondeau
I do not know why Sarah died;
I only know her parents cried
Such tears as only parents shed
When infant children die in bed—
A grief they did not try to hide.
At birth a tumor deep inside
Her brain was found and verified.
They asked the doctor, “Why?” She said,
__“I do not know.”
She died in spite of all they tried
And I, as Pastor, could have lied
And made up “why” their child was dead
But chose to speak the truth, instead,
And in all honesty replied:
__“I do not know.”
__
__
I Was Trenchant, Once
I was trenchant, once, when I was young;
Relevant and deft back in the day.
Life was but a song yet to be sung,
Truth was neither black nor white, but gray.
Pontifying, opining was my call.
Kvetcher, quibbler, nit-picker as well,
I was “Jack and Master” of them all.
“Cutting edge,” “outside the lines,” a swell.
I was clever, too, and more than smart;
Debonair, “well-met,” and full of wit;
Versed in both philosophy and art;
Cocky, brash, a know-it-all, and twit.
I’m humbler, now, and wiser, too, because
I’m not as smart as I once thought I was.
__
__
I Wrote a Poem
I wrote a poem but it didn’t rhyme
The way that a Petrarchan sonnet should.
It would have turned out better if I could
Have thought it through and given it more time.
The meter was so “off” it seemed a crime
To read it to my English class. I would
Have rather failed the course or chewed on wood
Than share a poem not yet at its prime.
And yet, although the poem was as rotten
To the core as it could be, I was
Assigned an “A” because my teacher had
Been touched by what I wrote. I had forgotten
How like magic words can be, because
It turned out good in spite of being bad.
__
__
James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse.
Wowzer! I’m mightily impressed with all three, but especially with the rondeau.
When I was very small, we had a neighbour, a little girl, Nicola, who I would see playing in her back garden. We used to speak with each other through the fence. We weren’t allowed to play together in person.
Nicola had a hole in the heart, which, by how serious my parents were when they told me, I realised was a bad thing to have.
Then one day Nicola wasn’t there, and my parents were sitting me down trying to explain why.
Your rondeau has finally made sense of this long-unremembered episode for me.
Thanks for the reads, James.
I’ve changed her name but the story is true. Hers was the first funeral I officiated following my ordination 42 years ago. Thank you for sharing your own memory of Nicola.
I agree with Paul; the poem about “Sarah” is especially moving. Sometimes the only answer is that we just don’t know.
I could relate to Honest to God because I had a great-nephew who died of a brain tumor at age 8. He was slow to speak, and at first his parents thought it was autism. The inoperable tumor wasn’t discovered until about a year before he died. It was so unfair.
I love “Trenchant”. Were I an English teacher/prof, I’d make every student read it – more than once.
Three gems, James, and somehow I am not at all surprised. I think that your pastoral experience has added dimensions of breadth and depth to everything you write, even when you are painting landscapes.
James – All three poems benefit from reading aloud and the truncated lines nine and fifteen in the first poem well suit the subject matter and the cutting short of a young life. It is so “unnatural” and piteous for a child so young to predecease its parents and this poem succeeds, with its understated poignancy, in getting this across, leaving one to wonder what the unsaid “lie” might have been. The second poem contains the clever paradox, that one may be wiser by NOT being as smart (and, conversely, being smarter by not being as wise?). And, incidentally, “pontifying” is a new one on me. The third poem is a paradox in itself, describing a bad sonnet by means of a perfectly good one and then reconciling the two and explaining exactly how this works in the last two lines. Three poems to make you think. Well done!
Thank you Peter ( and all of you who took the time to comment).
For those who may not know, the referenced lines are truncated because that is the form of a rondeau.
“Pontifying” may or may not be a word. If it isn’t, then I made it up. Feel free to borrow it.
As for the “lie,” I am afraid that many things are said to grieving folks that are meant well but do not provide much comfort. Some of these things are sentimental bromides and others are misplaced or ill-timed references to scripture or doctrine that also miss the mark. Sometimes, even as a pastor, discerning what, under the given circumstances, the right and good thing to say has proven to be quite challenging. With some exceptions I usually found funerals to be a good opportunity to share the good news of God’s saving love in Jesus to people who would otherwise have never stepped inside a church to hear it. Those with ears to hear, always heard that “good news” gladly.
As for the word “trenchant,” it was a favorite adjective of one of my seminary professors who taught comparative theology. I believe he picked it up from his doctoral dissertation on the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch. It is not a word I use often but seemed a term well-suited to the poem’s theme.
Naively said but so much knowledge to say it. Thank you for your feeling heart in the poems.
Thank you for your kind comment, Norma.
Of the three well polished poems, your choice of the rondeau form for the first poem, and its smooth execution, makes it my pick.
Ty David. I agree.
Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” That is so true but it is also true that the Lord takes some of those children to be with Him. Death is always sorrowful, but death in faith turns into joy.
Ron, I did not stumble onto your “trenchant” comment until today and I thank you for it. Your sentiment is wonderfully expressed by Saint Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 where he says, “Brothers (and sisters), we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep (in death), so that you do not grieve likel others do, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again . . . .”
I do not read this as suggesting that followers of Jesus “do not grieve,” but that we “do not grieve as others do.”
So, yes, there is faith, hope, and joy but it is also natural and normal to respond to death with grief and tears—especially, perhaps, in response to the death of a child like “Sarah.”