I wrote this in 2008 after listening to, “China’s Only Children Face Great Expectation,” a piece in a series about China’s culture on NPR. A tragic earthquake occurred that right about that time. Something about it hit me hard, probably because I am an only child, so I wrote something about it.
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Lonely Pillars
The earth has quaked and you pillars are crushed.
Death has taken you lonely pillars away.
Who will the heavy generation build their legacy on?
Who will build the next?
Whose strength will steady your parents in their old age?
Who will bear their memory, wisdom, and hopes?
What brother will stand in the rubble looking for you?
What sister will carry your memory with her?
Walls of nieces and nephews? They were never built.
And few and falling away are the remnants of your cousins.
The lonely bruised pillars that remain may mourn you,
But your architects did not pour into them as they did you.
The standing pillars do not share part of you and you with them.
You share only your loneliness.
I weep for you lost lonely pillars,
For I am an Only as you.
Copyright 2008 J. A. Goggans
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Copyright J. A. Goggans 2018 Taken at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest
It is hard to walk in a straight line,
Steady, determinedly, with no sign,
Or move forward with great force,
When there is no clear course.
The north star is dimmed
And the cloudy sky grim.
The path is over grown,
The trail with weeds sown.
And with that there is no end
for there was no begin.
Copyright 2014 J. A. Goggans
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A story popped into my head one day after I saw a church sign.
Before I begin, I’ll be honest with you, most church sign sayings drive me crazy. I don’t know what Church signs are like where you live, but in the South Eastern U.S. church signs rarely give useful information. Instead the signs are filled with little sayings and puns that I suppose are meant to be funny. However, they are never as funny as I presume they are meant to be, often off putting to even fellow Christians, and more times than I can keep up with they aren’t even true! For some reason though, I always read them. I especially read the ones I pass most often, which means I read the same annoying sign a dozen times before it’s changed. I don’t intentionally do this, it’s like a train wreck you look even though after you did you might wish you hadn’t.
This church sign said, with no punctuation: OH WANDERER COME HOME
But I read it in my mind as, “Oh, wanderer, come home!” expressed with desperation and longing.
I saw in my mind’s eye a young man leaving his home—a ranch out west many years before highways and cars. He leaves while everyone is sleeping, he leaves no note. He and his things are just gone when everyone wakes.
For years his mother and siblings are always watching for him, sure that he will come back. They go through different stages of grief. Most of them still have hope though it takes different forms in their character. One of the oldest siblings or older friends who helps take care of the family (which I can’t tell) bitterly tells the younger siblings, “He is never coming back!”
I watch in my imagination; the younger siblings grow up. They are a happy go lucky group who never let the woes of the world get them down. They joke instead of complain, but they are capable and responsible. Adventure is in their hearts. They leave home too.
Yet their departure is in opposition to their older brother. They tell their mother everything about the trip.
They tell her, “Good Bye.” They tell her, “We are going find him.” Their is no need to say who ‘him’ is.
Their bitter older relative or friend doesn’t come to see them off. They take this in with uncharacteristic stoicism. They seem to know without spoken words why he isn’t there. Do they still have as much hope for him as they do their long-lost brother?
They go west as everyone who left on journeys to find their way did back then. The home is even emptier now without their joy and hope.
Did the long-lost brother go east? Is that the plot twist? Is the plot twist why he left? Was it just self-centeredness coupled with desire for adventure or did something very dark happen? I can’t see that part of the story. At least I can’t right now.
I saw also what it would be like if he came home on his own from his mother’s imagination. But I did not see if he came home or if the siblings found him.
And I too felt the longing, “Oh, wanderer come home.”
Copyright 2018 J. A. Goggans
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Rough Draft ¶aragraphs 