Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (NIV)
Instead of the usual explanatory notes, this poem just needs a little context from my and Katie’s life. We started “dating” over Skype (remember Skype?) when I was living in Peru and she was in her final year of high school. I pressed some flowers in my copy of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and then shipped them to her. In this poem, I reflect on my hopes for life with Katie and for a vocation as a father and pastor.
[Thanks for reading. This post continues our series Verses for Vocation: Poems on the Sacred in Everyday Life and Work. Check out our other posts on faith and work and spiritual growth for more resources on living an integrated Christian life. Subscribe to get the next post in your inbox.]
Hope Sick
Cut between the pages of our prayers,
The mirrored ghost of flowers on a stem.
Purple petals, plucked and pressed and posted,
Passed a fragile hope across two continents.
I ponder all the hands that held that package
Before hers did, and all they carried, too.
Hopes of their own, no doubt, and grief, and longings.
Did they get the chance to see them through?
Quiet Dreams hold fast to bless and curse us
With the empty rooms of waiting on.
I thought then that things would come so easy.
A mercy I did not know I was so wrong!
Looking in her eyes, I saw a world.
The visions came there, painted soft and bright:
Toddler curls, sippy cups, playtime in the park.
A staff to hold, a chalice raised, sanctuary light.
Still fresh, if God should grant gray hairs to us,
We’re only at the start. Is waiting long?
The cuts that ache may yet yield to love.
Sweet fruit may grow from branches so made strong.
But if not—if pest or sword or storm
Breaks what here has grown; if dreams, now dust
Do not rise, but, withered, die again,
Still in those eyes I’m held and whole, at least enough to trust.
Post image: Courtesy of Chris Easley.
Series image: The Stevedores in Arles (Coal Barges) by Vincent van Gogh, 1888.
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1 thought on “Verses for Vocation: Hope Sick”
I am glad it was pressed flowers and not fly-swatting that made those stains. All marriages (or relationships) require the abandonment of half your DNA. This is an obvious part of sexual reproduction, but it is equally true of all that we carry that makes us who we are. No relationship can hold twice the contents of one person. Instead both must abandon half that they are in order that the relationship may thrive even as parts of each individual wither away. (Make a Hallmark card out of that!)