by the Night Writer
Here’s an excerpt from a poem I wrote several years ago. I wrote it after my final visit to see my grandfather while he was stll alive, but this section is appropriate for the waiting we’re doing today. The poem is called, “Just Waiting.”
And now, just waiting,
back at home I stand by another bedside,
listening to my wife breathe.
Undressing, I fit myself in beside her,
our heads touching, our arms
around each other, and we talk…
About the great moments of one’s life,
the excitement before a birthday,
the joy before a wedding,
and how these fall short of the momentous
anticipation and anxiety of the days leading up to
the birth of a child,
of going to bed wondering if this will be the night
that everything will change
and we awaken to bring forth a new life,
at once shuddering in both
the hope and the dread
of the joy that would be set before us
and the trial to be endured.
We also talk about the hope we have in Christ,
and of the days leading up to the joy/dread
in some distant but nearing future
when we go to bed wondering if that will be the night
that everything will change
and we awaken into new life.
