A Poet's Words

When I was still a boy trying to become a man, I went to Young Harris College.  It was there that I started learning about people and things that took me far beyond the boundaries of the small south Georgia world I knew as home.  It was while at Young Harris that I encountered the poetry of Byron Herbert Reese.  Reese was a north Georgia poet who lived a brief 40 years, but who was a genius at working with words.  Today as an old man who hardly remembers being a boy, I made a trek to the farm where Reese grew potatoes and poetry.    

One of the lines he wrote which really has stood out reads, "From chips and shards, in idle times, I made these stories, shaped these rhymes; May they engage some friendly tongue When I am past the reach of song."  Is there not in all of us a desire to be remembered in the days past those we live on this earth?  Is there not a desire in all of us to touch something in this life that will live forever?  Is there not something in us that pulls our soul toward eternity?    

It is with this longing that God has created us.  All of us want our life to count for something of value.  We want to be remembered.  We want to know that oneness with the One who created us that will finally bring us to the Home which was first seen by our unborn spirit when the eternal light of God shined on us in the womb.  This deep desire of of which Reese wrote and which our Creator planted in our soul is a gift of grace which serves as the direction marker for the days we walk on this earth.