_{Printed in Mike Bernhardt's book "Voices Of The Grieving Heart" 1994}

The Disclaimer

 

I mean no disrespect

But I think,

If the doctors had know him

The way some of us knew him …

 

They would have made

The recipients sign

An iron clad disclaimer…

 

Because there was a part of him

So ingrained in his very cells

That somewhere …

 

Some young boy or girl,

With their new life have found

An obsession to be near an old dusty pitcher’s mound …

And smile a sheepish grin.

 

 

Faded Paint

 

Silently we moved

As the apartment slowly yielded way

Giving up collections from our lives

Til last the walls stood barren covered in faded paint

Except where treasured pictures once hung…

There the paint still seemed fresh.

 

…It has been many years now

And memories of you have faded,

Except for a few…

There the paint

Still seems

Fresh

 

Rivers Gentle and Unseen

There is no life

He bids me live.

 

None to hold hands …

In green parks I walk alone.

 

None to lift spirits

On heated day

 

Often I pray,

He bids me live …

 

Hold your head high

Give it another try,

 

Trying I find

Is a battle of will …

 

There is no life,

Still …

 

No touch from

Gentle hands in love,

 

None to understand

And feel their trust

 

At night

I sleep alone …

 

I bid myself

Turn to goals

 

Still I find

There is no life …

 

Not enough money

To go to school,

 

Though I have always wanted …

A failure I am haunted by.

 

I try to achieve

A dream believed by me.

 

Father says he would

If only he could,

 

Says he has done so little for me …

For once we agree …

 

There is no life,

He bids me live.

 

Do not,

Judge me unjustly

 

I have tried …

My God I have tried.

 

Many beliefs

I have questioned,

 

Giving up heaven

for just this world,

 

There is no life,

He bids me live.

 

A God of love

That will not intervene,

 

Except to say,

Those words that burden me.

 

I am sure he knows,

If only he would show …

 

Tears flow like rivers

Gentle and unseen …

 

If only someone,

Would walk these shores …

 

And for once

Take time to explore …

 

There is no life

He bids me live …

 

I Wonder

 

I, for many

Long silent hours sat,

Hoped and prayed, yet still …

 

Your closed eyes did not open

Nor your hands move,

As you lay in the gray light of that cold room.

 

I thought of our childhood friendship

As pictures of our life

Flashed before my eyes

On your white bed linen …

 

We have come a long way,

From those first Mesa Verde days

When trees made the hardest

Football tackles.

 

Did we not laugh, just the other day,

As my daughter sounded

Our parent’s age old cry,

“You call that music?”

 

But I wonder,

 

Have we really

Come so far

In our twenty-seven years

 

That I stand here, holding your hand

And bid you good-bye with teary eyes

As if you were just going on some summer’s vacation.

 

Must your season end with Falls’ golden leaves

As I bend over and around the cold tubes and wires,

For the first and final time say …

 

I love you?

 

Engineers Pass – 1988

 

I have traveled trails

To highest majestic mountains

Up through the cool thin air and misty fog

 

I have paused half-way up,

Walked the crystal clear shores

Of beaver’s secret lakes

 

I have seen deer

Saunter softly along

Green mountain sides

Unaware of man or guns.

 

I have climbed past the point

Where pine trees grow,

Past the earth’s clouds

To the untouched tundra.

 

I have felt the mountain peaks tremble

high above the lighting..

Watched the sleet and snow

Bathe the golden valley below

 

I have stood

In storms’ fierce winds

And stared at all the worlds’

Purple mountain peaks.

 

I have traveled

Where man can only glimpse

Treasures of a land

Where no man can live

 

I have traveled trails

To highest majestic mountains

Then come down …

My soul longing for heaven.