Poem for my Uncle Reuben

My beloved Uncle Reuben passed away in January, it's been a great loss to all of us.  For all that he did wrong in life, he did an equal amount of right, you just couldn't help but love him.  Family meant everything to him and you always knew you were loved when you got one of those big hugs from him.  He wasn't one of those men that held his feelings in, you always knew where you stood with him.

There so much I could say about him, but I just knew I couldn't get up in front of all those people at the service to say it.  The morning of his service this poem just came to me, I had to write it down and all I could find was post-it notes, so I wrote it down on a bunch of them!  In the car on the way to the service my oldest daughter kindly copied them on to a sheet of paper so I wouldn't had to stand with all these post-it's in my hand.  I waited to read it at the graveside.  I was so nervous, I hate to talk in front of lots of people (and there was a lot there!) and I usually talk so quite but I just knew I had to do it or regret not doing it.


So here is my poem that I read, it's my take on an Irish blessing, even though my Uncle didn't have any Irish in him unless it was whiskey!


May you have arrived to open gates


May you have arrived to open arms of those gone before


May have all your troubles, sorrows, pain been lifted;
Lifted from your weary soul


May the golden warmth heal your broken heart, 
warm your cold hands


May your days now be filled with peace; 
your dreams of happy times


May you watch over the ones you left behind; 
their hearts filled with sorrow and pain


May you help ease their pain with memories; 
Memories of better times


May you warm their cloudy days with rays of light from above


May when they reach the end, you be standing; 
Standing at the open gates with arms opened wide,
To welcome them home.

And as many said at the service after I read it, Amen.

Picture of my Uncle Reuben that I took at his daughter Felicia's wedding  a few years ago.

~Laura Fedak, Written January 2012

Craziness (Amber's poem)

Amber had to write a poem for school, the teacher gave them the words in red and the students had to feel in from there.  The first thing they had to do was pick an emotion or state (like state of mind), Amber picked craziness.   There was a name for the type of poem but I can't remember what it's called. 


Here's Amber's poem....




Craziness


Craziness is a bright RAINBOW, twisty in the  blue gray sky
It tastes like sweet candy oozing caramel
It smells like nectarous honey suckles brightening the awful day up.
It reminds me of  jumping  around when I am excited
It sounds like crackling hyena dancing in the night
Craziness makes me feel like I’m swimming through a colored sky.

An Old Poem of Mine

I've been going through all my files on my back up drive today (Jason had to reload my computer a while ago and I'm just getting to going through all the stuff!) and I found a poem that I had to write in a Lit class in high school.  I loved this particular class as the teacher was so different from all the other English teachers we had and I was a sophomore in a junior class too.  I was so shy at the time and I remember being very nervous having to get up in front of the class to read my poem in front all these kids that I didn't know, I still hate group speaking to this day!  Enough babbling, here is the poem....

I Am...

I  am  a  writer  of  life.

To  impose  perplexity  of  words

On  delicate  white  paper

Like  to  show  the  cold,  black,  dreary

Elements  of  life

Hidden  in  words.

As  an  innocent  child

I  wrote  with  crayons.

Like  me  they  were  naive

I  would  write  with  big ,  harsh  letters

My  lines  would  never  be  straight

My  words  saying  what  they  meant

My  mind  untainted ;

Words  of  happiness.

A  little  older  now, I  write  with  ink

Knowing  that  not  every  word  has  to  be

          Of  happiness,

And  that  I  am  not  so  innocent  to  life

           Anymore,

And  that  my  writing  doesn't  have  to  say

           What  it  means.

I  no  longer  write  in  big , harsh  letters

Words  gently  laid  upon  the  paper.

My  writing  has  changed

And  I  have  changed.

I  will  write  until  my  words  no

     longer  make  sense -

The  day  when  my  ashes  mix  with the  land.

Goodbye Lie

To say Goodbye

Would mean saying Hello

To your life

That has never known me

But one I’ve been apart of

One I helped to save

Yet only you and I know

Know what I did to save you

To open your eyes

To the truth

As painful as it was

Now I stand here in pain

Pain from no goodbye

Just “I’ll be in touch if I can”

But I knew, you knew

It was a lie, that was

Your goodbye

It ended this way before

With no goodbye

Years it took to find it

To find the answers

Bringing you back

Back into my life

But not I into yours

You could not

It would destroy it

Funny that I am the one

The one that saved it

From others you hid

That caused pain I never did

This time

I will seek no goodbye

You’ll stay a ghost

Of my past

A lesson I should have learned

Learned from the first

The first no goodbye

No goodbye the first time

Tells me what I should have known

There should have never been

Another Hello

Another there never will be.