My Father's Voice

My Father’s Voice

Sometimes it’s my father’s voice I hear

in my own, and the dream I dream

may have been his before I was born.

His father I never knew and so on

back through all the years that have ever

been.  The hand I raise to pull the bow

is my left hand.  My mother taught me that,

although some teacher made her change the pen

to her right hand once she went to school.

Now that I’ve lived half my life without them,

some mornings I wake and see the photo

on the wall of their last forty years together.

My father looks straight at me, my mother aside,

because, she said, she’d cry because of pride.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        27 March 2012

Coffin

Yesterday I finished my coffin building project.  Drop in sometime for the viewing.  (of the coffin, not my viewing)

So here is a photo and a poem that came after I got the project done.

          Soliloquy

Once you finish your coffin

you knock on wood and wait

for a knock at the door.

Or for the dog to come back

from his amorous night abroad. 

Twice a day the tide comes in. 

Its rip beats a swift retreat

at the close of the third act

you watch all your life after

the curtain is drawn.  The lines

you thought you knew by heart,

you forget and have to ad lib. 

Maybe your lines will be better. 

Maybe no one will notice

your exit left, the heroine still

on stage for her soliloquy.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                     

Knick-knacks

Knick-knacks

The knick-knacks we pass on

may be discarded, given away,

or burned. No one but we

can appreciate what they signify.  

Sometimes a year, more often just

a day we were together where

we’d never been and wanted

to remember Bali or Japan, or

sailing up the Yangtze, freezing

at the tip of South America’s

Tierra del Fuego: Fire Land.

The artisans who carved or cast

these knick-knacks may have been

grateful we could appreciate

the work of careful hands.

They had lives to earn, much harder

than our own.  And so we brought

a piece of them to far off Idaho

to rest on a shelf and be dusted

off from time to time, as we

remember traveling together

through this world abroad or home.

When we pass on, we pass

these knick-knacks to another

generation who may never go

where we have gone.  Maybe

they’ll remember who we were.

Maybe they will know how much

we loved them and each other

no matter where we travelled,

no matter what we brought home

to leave together in an empty house

long after we were gone.

                   

—Donnell Hunter

                                      22 February 2012

Credo

Credo

God is our father.

He is a physical being with a body of flesh and bone.

We lived with him as his spirit children and were taught the Plan of Salvation whereby we may become like him through our obedience and through receiving the saving ordinances of his Gospel.

There we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior.

With him we helped create this earth and covenanted to take upon ourselves mortal bodies in order to prove ourselves that we would be obedient in all things.

Those who did not accept Christ were cast out and were not permitted to receive bodies.

They became the devil and his angels who tempt us to disobey and to become miserable as they are.

Adam and Eve, our first parents, walked and talked with God in the Garden of Eden until through their disobedience they were cut off from his presence.

We likewise are cut off through disobedience as we become accountable for our actions.

God reveals the Plan of Salvation through his Prophets who administer the keys of his Priesthood.

All God’s children, whether living or dead, are eventually taught the Plan of Salvation.

To fulfill that Plan Jesus Christ condescended from his godhood and took upon himself mortality to show and teach us how we might return to the presence of our Father.

By means of his Atonement the resurrection of all mankind was brought to pass, and it became possible to receive forgiveness of our sins through repentance.

All necessary saving ordinances of the Gospel may be received by the living and vicariously by the dead in the Temples through the ministration of the keys of the Priesthood.

There we are endowed with greater knowledge and make covenants so that we may be sealed as families and become like our heavenly parents.

As we keep those covenants and through repentance, we may be redeemed from the Fall and return to the Celestial Kingdom to dwell eternally with our Heavenly Father and those we love.

                                

                                                          —Donnell Hunter

Valentine

For My Valentine

In my worst nightmare I’m young

again and realize I have yet to learn

everything that required pain to be

who I am today.  Being old is bad

enough but to be young again?

No thanks. 

My Valentine was there, pretty,

but not as beautiful as she’s become: 

sparkling eyes, patient (could I

be the cause of that?) a friend

to everyone she meets, and kind,

especially to me.

                      —Donnell Hunter

                                        14 February 2012

Autumn Blaze

Autumn Blaze

With no reluctance maple gives

up green.  Chlorophyll breaks

down, and for a fortnight

all its complements shine.

Red is filial in this light

in this fortnight of fall,

this blaze of praising God

the father who made us all.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            10 February 2012

Eighty-one and counting

It was bright moonlight this morning, enough that we didn't need a night light to see our way around.  I remembered a line from the poem, Loveliest of Trees, and when I got around to writing my poem (Nita still abed) this came fairly easy.

Anticipation

                    Now of my threescore years and ten,

                        Twenty will not come again.

                              —A. E. Housman

                                       

In my case four times twenty years have come. 

Eighty snows, eighty springs, buds and blossoms

faded, gone.  Sunrise, moonset, through the trees

no one could be happier with these

than I as I await the Eastertide

with you, my sweetheart, three score years my bride.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        6 February 2012