This image lingered in my mind, resurfaced, and demanded my attention.
The photo was taken in Rockport, Texas, in November 2017, some three months after Hurricane Harvey struck. Two years later, the image resurfaced in my mind. Not the photo itself: the mental image of this lone chair standing erect amid the devastation. That image prompted the poem below.
When I first saw the scene, I simply shook my head, inarticulate in the face of such loss. Long after the debris was finally cleared away, this image of the chair came to mind, calling for attention.
No, I do not claim this was inspiration. I certainly would not claim the poem is inspired. But I do believe we are called to pay attention to such promptings. Something within is rising to the service, something that calls for attention, our sacred attention to what is stirring, perhaps stirred by the Holy Spirit, within our souls.
Better Days
The chair stands erect,
turned away from the table,
in the middle of the empty kitchen.
It has seen better days, this chair.
The light oak wood is nicked and scratched,
the seat worn from long use.
Yes, this chair has seen better days:
Card games and family dinners.
Long chats over morning coffee,
golden light from over the bay
streaming through kitchen windows.
It is not a good day, the day I see the chair.
I see the chair from the street,
the cottage roof and bayside wall
ripped away by the hurricane;
the family kitchen stripped bare
to the stare of every passing eye.
Amid all the twisted, snarled destruction
the straight chair stands erect,
in the middle of the empty kitchen.
Did the storm leave it so,
a lone sentinel standing watch
over chaos? Possibly;
stranger things have happened.
Or did the owner return,
pick her way through the rubble,
set the chair upright, and sit,
sit staring blankly out at the bay
remembering better days,
before walking away forever,
leaving the chair erect,
in the middle of shattered dreams?
--Bill
