Left Behind

"Every moment of this strange and lovely life from dawn to dusk is a miracle. 

Somewhere, always, a rose is opening its petals to the dawn. 

Somewhere, always, a flower is fading in the dusk." 

 Beverly Nichols

Left Behind

by Elece Hollis

I love to find the spaces where the flowers bloom and grow,

Places where once frame houses stood ... abandoned long ago.

I love to see the trees strong standing like sentinels on the land;

To think of the generations these farms and orchards spanned.

I love to think in years gone by—sweet on a springtime day,

Long before the family changed and faded soft away,

A housewife knelt with flower bulbs, a garden trowel in her hand,

Turned back the dirt and snugged each bulb like a promise to the land.

She watched them sprout each springtime—watched them bloom in time;

She knew they'd make the heart glad ... like God's poetry and rhyme.

Pink hyacinths, dancing iris, bright sunny daffodils,

Come suddenly through the brown loam of winter's dreary chills.

Through many years of happiness, perhaps a few of woe,

Those flowers sprout back up again when soft spring breezes blow.

They push up through life's seasons. They speak of days gone by,

Of births, of deaths, marriages, moves—changes the blossoms belie.

One day the house stood empty, one day the roof would fall,

But those flowers would come for decades—legacies outlasting all.

When houses and barns decay and fall, and fences totter and lean

The soil reclaims its expanses, but time winks his eye at these.

A good man leaves an inheritance for his Children's children...

Proverbs 13:22

Helen Steiner Rice poetry with devotions by Elece Hollis

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