Lickley's Corners Baptist Church

I am Broken. Who are you?

Are you Broken too?

Dickinson said that. Or the Apostle Paul?

Or was it Nobody. I know. At all?

I used to live in rhythm and rhyme;

My style was lovely most all of the time.

My mind is leaving, but still I am here,

In darker confusion every year.

The waffle iron in the deep freeze-

Windows opened to a winter breeze.

Did I do those puzzling things myself?

Or do I live with a mischievous elf?

My children change me and lift me into bed.

I wish that I still cared for them instead.

I wonder. What do they see when they look at me?

Do they see anything of the Poem I used to be?

Do they see just a woman who forgets to brush her hair?

Whose mind rambles from the present back to who knows where?

Do they hear me calling them every ten minutes or so?

Or do they hear echoes of the sweet voice they used to know?

That called them into dinner. That soothed their hurts and woes.

That stood up for them fiercely against every threat and foe.

Do they still hear me laughing at their silly jokes and rhymes?

Now I do not understand what they say-much of the time.

Somehow I have forgotten much of what I used to know.

Is this the season for flowers, or should I expect the snow?

The year, the president, these things are meaningless to me.

My life is closing darkly in, and little do I see

To make me smile. To make me laugh. To fill my heart with joy.

But I still know my little girl, and I know my little boy.

As they care for me like a child, I think perhaps they see,

Inside the broken poem, the love that still is Me.