“…family tree…”

Family Tree

Family time 

A family tree

Enough strength for another day for me.

Same home, same street for many years. 

A “Little house in the big woods”

“Family life is hard and serious work,

But fun 

Keep that twinkle in your eye”

Family.

Walk and see 

The memories

Similar paths recall

Roots so deep

Limbs branching, strong and climbing 

Heights never dreamed

Family tree 

Family Circles

Walk the paths 

Circle the paths;

Around memorials aged and high

Around flags reaching to the sky

Around a bronze, heart, embraced with arms of steel

Around inscriptions, Loss to Bliss

Around Life promise’d

Family trees,

Roots at our feet

Family trees

Pruning

Limbs growing off course, awry 

Disease and age deprived of leaves

Volunteers, new sprouts,

Growth. Grafting new growth to family

“Brokenness to beautiful”

Family.

Think how many have looked up.

How many generations have looked to The Lord 

“The Lord is round about his people

Encircles and wraps around those who belong to him” (1)

Trial and turn, they pass

Seasons change

Love, understanding, and legacies remain.

The one thing we have seen bright as the new day is

The promise of the day, seeing your faces, 

Wishing we would have “given more away.

“The way of love…

Grounding, a place to rest

Pulling us through when no strength remains” (2)

 Family Tree, Glimpse poetry by Joe Holuta 

About this poem: Family Tree is a poem about the growth each family experiences in life. Each person, including everything about them, makes the family tree. Imperfect yet enduring and love in the middle- life. -Joe Holuta 

(1) “Just as the mountains around Jerusalem embrace her, the Eternal, too, wraps around those who belong to Him—for this moment and for every moment to come.” Psalm 125:2 VOICE

(2) "The way of love will show us the right thing to do, every single time. It is moral and spiritual grounding-and a place of rest- amid the chaos that is often part of life. It’s how we stay decent in indecent times... And It’s those people that love that pull us through and keep us going when we don’t have the strength.… Human beings – fragile as we are – are the beautiful, heartbreaking conduit, but ultimately not the source.” - Bishop Michael Curry, Love is the Way; Holding onto Hope in Troubled Times.

“…Reminiscence …”

Yesteryear

Today

Reminiscence 

I see the VFW golf course once busy and alive now in disrepair on the way home from the shopping mall

Dandelions on the fairway, the green, and in the sand trap

I have memories of golfing there, 

My eldest son's wedding weekend we played golf

He had a good shot over the pond and trees - unforgettable

The reminiscence of when coal was king in our county and city

and manufacturing jobs were plentiful 

Businesses were booming

Pickup truck sales were through the roof

Now the activity is deadening 

These businesses are long gone 

Golf course empty, no carts running busily about

The power plant cooling towers in the distance, now idle, without steam from the towering stacks

I live in remembrance as I’m walking the shopping mall parking lot 

Now nearly empty of cars

Decades before not even a place to park when department stores, like Sears, BonTon, Kmart, JC Penny were rambling with business 

Alive with shoppers and children running the aisles and through the garment racks

We were young, both working, had to set appointments around schedules of each other's work, and kids- for the car when needing tires, inspections...

Long walk home and then returned

My dad loaned us his Sears card so we would have what we needed-

as we needed help, washer and dryer on the blink

The back entrance at Sears, the loading dock was always busy with appliances being loaded, lawnmowers and all ...

Today Sears is bankrupt and long gone

As most of the other department stores 

Now two food wagon-trailers are present

One is a Fried Stromboli wagon, and the other is Ice cream and milkshakes.

Kohl's is there now
as a place for me to return our Amazon packages

A Church meets in the mall where numerous businesses met prior

I still feel quite nostalgic for those days gone by 

Life busy and full and stressed in a productive way

Things so good 

Gratitude feelings

Warm sunny days, car seats with Cheerios and fruit chews stuffed in the sides

Sticky faces and necks of the kids- sippy cups tumble and stained shirts

Older, Trips to Getty heights park, ball bats, gloves and soccer spikes in the back of the Aerostar

Reminiscence -a story told about a past event remembered by me the narrator,

Why is it we reflect on the enjoyable recollection of past events and somehow screen the hard

Memories that make today more pleasant- nostalgia

“Nostalgia is how God sees all the time.”1

We will recover, our city will change and carry on 

We “adapt, improvise, and overcome”

Children grow and age and have lives of their own

Now helping chart schedules, jobs and lives themselves

Reflection, recollection, memories help us as we go on our way

Some may think it saddens the present to reminisce 

I think it only sweetens the days 

Revitalizes the heart and the small town appeal and austerity

Only polishes the hearts of gold

 “We are people of hope, and therefore we do not live in the past. We draw thankfulness from the past.” 2

Reminiscence, Glimpse poetry by Joe Holuta

1. “I can have nostalgia for almost anything. That’s how it works. It makes the events of your past integral in your present, as I’m sure they are. Nostalgia is how God sees all the time.”

-Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean, Notes on Ego, Love, And the Things That Make Us Who We Are

2. “We are people of hope, and therefore we do not live in the past. We draw thankfulness from the past. We draw life giving repentance from the past. We feed our faith and hope on the faithfulness of God in the past, and we learn everything we know and get all the wisdom we have from the past. But all of it is for the sake of this afternoon’s joy and this afternoon’s faith and this afternoon’s obedience and the joy of all eternity."  -John Piper

Yesteryear

Today