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The Last Song: four poems by Robert Funderburk


Illustration of a boy holding a lamp of fireflies, and more fireflies also glowing in the dark blue night, image by nini kvaratskhelia, on Pixabay, modified.


















fireflies, image by nini kvaratskhelia, on Pixabay, modified



The Gift



At your birth

You were so fresh

From heaven

You showered us

With His radiance


I gathered

Those drops of glory

And stored them

Like fireflies

In a jar.


Their shining never fails

To light my way

When the path

Grows dark



*



The Last Song



For the first time

another voice, not mine

sang you to sleep

to a longer night

than we have known.


For the first time

other arms

lifted you from sleep

to banish night

with endless dawn.




“Let the little children come to me,

and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God

belongs to such as these” (Luke 18:16).



*



Vanquished



I struggled with the beast of sleep,

raked with claws, slashed with fangs,

it was a bloodless pain.

“The battle is the Lord’s,”

she said.

Stillness, ineffable light

and the beast became a Lamb

and lay beside me

and I slept.


“He who finds a wife finds a good thing

And obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).



*



Road of Shadows



There is a road

On the south side of this wilderness

And light falls through the trees

And settles upon it

In pools of burnt gold

Crossed by shadows

At the far end

You can see that pure light

An eternal brightness and comfort


I stand now and gaze

Toward that far end

Of this old, old road

My grandfather who preached

A pure gospel long ago

And was ridiculed for it

His wife

My quilt stitched by her arthritic hands

Her stories drifting back from my childhood

Stands next to him

In summer blaze

Or winter’s hard and unforgiving cold

My father and I worked together, building,

He smiles down at my mother

Who rarely spoke an unkind word

Against anyone she ever knew


Their smiles are as pure as that eternal light

As they turn toward me

My soul longs for them


But my granddaughter’s laughter

Is a silver cord, pulling me

And there is work to be done


That day has not yet come

For me




(This poem was previously published in Robert Funderburk’s chapbook, Light Eternal.)



____________________________________________





Robert Funderburk was born by coal oil lamplight

in his home near Liberty, Mississippi, graduated

from Louisiana State University in 1965, and served

as Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force from 1965

to1971. He now lives with his wife, Barbara, enjoying

the peace of home on fifty acres of wilderness in

Olive Branch, Louisiana.


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2 Comments


cmbharris
cmbharris
Sep 18, 2023

Such lovely poems, Bob.

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Thank you. Sorry for the late reply.

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