Two of my ancestors built houses hundreds of years ago and they are still full of life and treasure.. 

John built a house in the heart of old England

back when Sir Francis Drake

was plundering for Spanish gold.

 Later John had a grandson Thomas

who filled that house with three million pounds of treasures

in today's money

hauled back to England,

souvenirs of sunny Italy -

large paintings that hang there still:

 by Salvator Rosa, Giacinto Brandi, Filippo Lauri

and more.

In the century afterwards another John

built a markedly more modest house

in the heart of New England

a decade after the Mayflower Pilgrims battled for life

in the winter of their arrival.            

This John had grandsons too

who returned his precious Communion set

cups and plates in low luster pewter

along with the Bible he rescued

from falling embers on the trans Atlantic voyage -

a Puritan treasure that now lies open in a glass case,

open to pages John so carefully patched.

More centuries pass

and both houses stand still

guarding similar hoards -

each a library

with shelf upon shelf of precious books.

Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire, UK and the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massassachucetts, USA - both house celebrated book collections. Ancestors: John Isham of Lamport 1525-1595 and John Lothropp of Barnstable 1584 -1653

The table top's solid seeming

surface is dense timber,

but I gather now it's

riddled top to legs 

with tiny spinning particles

suspended in a large space -

these whirling bits 

nested each in each

smaller and smaller 

like Russian dolls until they

vanish in one quantum

disappearing act

leaving only code -

glittering code that radiates

the Logos spoken in long ribbons

sustaining

like sticks for spinning plates  

the tiny whirling particles 

in the circus act of God's

boundless exuberance

tabled - just beneath the surface

and discretely out of sight.

 

The Reverend John Lothropp Restores Jerusalem

An ember from the flickering lamp

falls on John Lothropp's Bible 

open to the Acts of the Apostles

obliterating 

the journey of James to Jerusalem 

abolishing half the city there --

in fact burning away most of verse thirteen 

chapter thirteen 

in the annotated 1605 English Bible

which the Reverend John afterward restored

applying a neatly trimmed

precisely pasted oval of precious paper

garnered from who knows where

and with his quill dipped in dark ink

to imitate the tufted printer's font 

along with the f-like 's' in Jerusalem 

on the mid Atlantic 1635 voyage of the Griffin

among the shifting boxes and barrels 

below deck, the dark

illuminated by a sputtering lantern that 

swayed overhead as the sea swelled

source of the impish ember

that fell to burn away 

the journey of James to Jerusalem 

and Paul to Pamphylia -- sat there reading 

at that moment of fiery destruction -

the Reverend John mindfully 

having set sail one and a half millennia 

in the wake of James bound for Jerusalem

and like Paul abroad on 

somewhat similar sail driven ships

came John Lothropp, to minister the Word

in a distant land.

Did John, inking the missing five letters, see

a parable of Jerusalem restored 

a burning bush moment emanating the very voice of God?

Perhaps by Puritan persuasion he anticipated 

a New England Jerusalem like 

Governor Winthop's City on a Hill?

Or rather by hint of his own ink

was he pointed beyond immediate prospects

to the City of Light whose river flowed 

sweet among the healing trees

in the wake of the Day of the Lord?

The glorious city saluted 

in the final pages of his 

1605 English Bible.

We've had about two dozen sheep
mostly three or four at a time
over the last four decades.

All of them had names.

As of today there is only Smudge
because this morning
I filled in the hole
where we rested Smudge's mother
old Salty.

These four footed parables
have recalled the prophets
            as a sheep before her shearers is dumb
       
            white as wool 
at least when newly fleeced

and maybe once or twice
one of our sheep was
             led as a lamb to the slaughter.

They've made us consider
our human selves
dumb in that other sense too
strong willed
yet so easily led
fleet of foot
tough, rugged
all weather creatures
yet so readily preyed upon.

Some won our hearts
especially one little black lamb.
Marion wept when she was
savaged beyond repair
by the neighbor's dog.

But strong too --
Rabbit, on account of her long ears
once reared up
and planted her hooves on my shoulders --
pushed me to the ground.

Individuals
with quirks
and particular appetites.
Smudge likes banana skins.

The annual clip
never brought more than a couple of dollars
but there's payment in other ways

like with little children's faces
peering though the fence
timidly reaching to touch the creatures
eating the oats they've emptied on the ground

like sheep as parables
underscoring
my thank-you list and
showing up my shortcomings.

Edward W Jenks peers 
through the viewfinder of
his 1906 Brownie box camera.

When the camera clicks
he catches my great grandmother
Florence as she smiles
in her voluminous Gibson Girl dress.

Sitting kerbside she points
to direct the attention
of two small children.

Edward on the right
is my father,
nearly three.
Next to him is
little sister Marsha,
almost two.

In the following year Marsha is taken to heaven.
(Had I been born a girl I would have been Marsha's namesake.)

Later on comes toddler Paul
who also left this life behind
at two years old
and later still another baby boy
gone before he could be given
a name of his own.
Of my father's seven siblings
three died as little children.

Back when families bearing a small box
toward a newly dug grave
was not such an uncommon sight
how then was all the sorrow borne?

This year my own grandson
was taken just days before his seventh birthday --
the day that ended all his pain.
It followed four and a half years trekking
every newly minted trail of
promising medical procedures
leaving punishing grief tattooed forever
behind the eyes of my son and daughter-in-law.

What if childhood death is actually harder now?
Harder with expectations honed
by many fewer children's graves?
Harder because hospitals abound
with life sustaining artifice
dangling hope upon hope?

Could it actually be harder now?
And how perverse is that?

But who could ever measure the 'hard'?
I can barely even imagine my grandparents
and their children
in the days when they wept their good-byes.