Glenn Currier

 

 

 

Crossing the River        Print this poem only

 

She gets up in the morning, feeds the cat,

and with her face washed, teeth brushed, hair fixed,

and dressed,

she carefully puts on her shoes -  one foot aching so bad

she wonders if she can walk through this day.

 

Already feeling tired

but not yet out the door,

she takes her pills, gathers her purse and work things,

and speaks in her cute little voice to her kitty

telling her to be good, blowing her a kiss.

 

She feels pain.

And pain does something to you.

It depresses, it foments fear -

its dread, dark and heavy -

can blanket and engulf you.

But still, she closes the door

and takes those first painful steps to her car,

moved and motivated by the faces in her mind,

faces of her co-workers

and her beloved students

knowing her special bond with them.

 

 

She winds her way through the traffic

and the too familiar streets of Baton Rouge

and approaches the bridge

the bridge that she will mount

to cross the river.

    .    .    .    .    .

 

How many rivers have I crossed

into mornings

with early feelings of sadness or fear?

 

How many rivers have you approached

in the dailyness of your life

that challenged you to find a bridge

across.

 

Sometimes I think I know someone so well

they fall into easy categories.

My judgments are so sure

my perceptions so comfortable
in the terrain of my mind.

 

And then something happens

revealing without warning

the tenderness

the fragility

the exposed humanity

of the person I was so sure I knew.

 

And I feel confused and lost

in an strange and foggy place

where all my certainty

seems subtlety

and disappears in the mist.

 

I wonder if we can really know another person,

even family and close friends,

and how the plows of life

have carved their inner contours?

    .    .    .    .    . 

 

Across the river

on the other side

of her troubles and pain

she arrives in a place where she belongs

a place where her skills

and her good intentions

flower each day

and she lends her hand and heart

in modest service to the young growth of her students.

 

 

I cannot say what ache is in her

nor grasp my own pain - much less hers.

But when I slip on the downside of being human

I fall into her arms

I caress her heart

I know she knows what it’s like. 

 

When I trip on the rug of self-pity

I catch myself and think of her resolve

and the flight of courage

she took with each daily challenge

her body presented.

 

    .    .    .    .    .

 

​So here today we remember the June we loved:

 

The June Bug, the baby sister

who drew our affection –

and who learned she could depend on her family.

 

The young Wonder-Woman-June

so stunningly gorgeous and impressive -

the June who loved to see that wondrous impression

in the eyes of others.

 

The June with a surprising down to earth humor

who made us chuckle

and see the lighter side

of family and ourselves.

 

The feline June

who knew in cats a kindred species,

the June who empathized

with troubled ones – the ones regarded as lowly.

 

We are here to remember the June

whose depth and whose soul

were beyond our reach

but were as sure and true

as the God who filled her being.

    .    .    .    .    .

 

I remember  the June  

whose childlike spirit

and delight in her simple life

make me humble and grateful

that she was family.

And I am now sure she and I belong together

we are one

in all the important human ways.

 

This beautiful spirit

is what I will try to recall

the next time I encounter

my own raging river.

 

 

Dedicated to my beloved cousins, June Marie Thibodeaux [February 25, 1955 - January 4, 2014], Rodger Landers, and David Landers

 

Author’s Note:  June worked as a teacher’s assistant in Port Allen, Louisiana - in West Baton Rouge Parish - across the Mississippi River bridge from Baton Rouge where she resided with her cat in her modest apartment of which she was so proud. This poem was read at her funeral.

​

Written 4-1-14