Tag Archives: love

Mr. Goodat and Pastor Good

We know these people. Sometimes we are these people.

I like this little piece, and I must laugh because as is sometimes the case, I seem to be one of the few people who likes it! Why do I laugh? Here is something I’ll have to explore: when I write something that gets good response, there’s a sense in which it belongs to the readers; when it’s something that does not get a good response, even though I like it, it remains my “private stash.” As I said more than once to my sons in their youth: “Oh, you don’t like it? Good. There’s more for me!”

A Sonnet for Cecile

(This poem USED to follow the rules for a Shakespearean sonnet. But forty years later, I have forgotten a few words and four lines! They were important to the flow and form, but probably added nothing to the sentiment. I was a freshman in college when I wrote this for an English course. It recalled the powerful crush I had on a girl who worked with me at a summer camp. She was older than me, beautiful and charming beyond description. When the summer passed, she returned to her home in the city, and shy young Brad — still working at the camp — could only watch for the ghost of her memory.)

I read the claim that “seasons rule man’s heart”
And thought, “Absurd! I know that cannot be!
Such stuff is nothing but poetic art
For mine was ne’er affected one degree!”

“My heart in dead of winter, as in spring
Has always changeless been despite the time!
Such stuff is used for rhyme
By poets who in fact don’t mean a thing.”

And still I’d think the poets’ claim untrue,
Had I not spent this Fall apart from you.

— Brad Hepp, Fall of 1978

AUGUST 2021 NOTE: I was reading back over my poems the other day and hit this one. I still haven’t found the original, full sonnet. BUT, this time, Cecile’s last name suddenly popped into my mind. A quick Google search, and it looked like I had located her. She now has a key position in state government. On LinkedIn, I messaged Cecile, assuring her that I’m NOT a stalker. She confirmed that she is the Cecile who tended the gardens at that summer camp. Fun.

Here’s the exchange I had with Cecile (slightly redacted):
I wrote:
Cecile,   In my semi-retirement, I have been working on my poetry. The oldest poem I halfway recall is a sonnet I wrote for “Cecile” after the summer when she and I both worked at Sky Ranch out in East Texas. By the time I wrote the sonnet, I was in college and past my infatuation for her, but the memory of that infatuation was ample inspiration! I’m not a stalker. Rather, I’m happily married to my beautiful, godly wife Susan, and serving as an elder at our church here in Dallas. For some reason, the last name [REDACTED] popped into my mind when I was working on my poetry blog. A quick search, and there was this highly-accomplished civil servant. It wouldn’t surprise me if the inspiring young lady who tended the gardens at Sky Ranch is now tending something equally important.

Cecile responded:
“I did tend the garden at Sky Ranch. It was such a great time. I keep up with several others who worked the same summer.”

Young Friends

Listen:

Commentary

I won’t embarrass the young people I wrote this for by telling you their names. Suffice it to say that it is a young man and his girlfriend. They got to know each other at a time when both were dealing with anxiety. Their kindness to one another was soothing, leading in time to genuine love (affection coupled with determined efforts to seek the good of the loved one). Buoyed by countless long conversations, they have each grown stronger, assured of the love and support that overcomes anxiety.

But life continues to be hard. Pressures abound. Schoolwork is taxing. Other responsibilities pile on with each year of young life. What this poem advocates is that my young friends face those pressures, spend the time and mental/emotional energy that is demanded of them now without resorting to the comfort they have come to know in each other’s presence (physical and virtual, thanks to the Internet). In devoting time to their duties, they are not denying the affection they have for one another, but investing in themselves, investing in the valuable person they are, the valuable person loved by the other.

In a storm, darkness and curtains of rain may limit how far we see, but hearing our friend calling out encouragement is a powerful aid. I like to imagine some code phrase like, “Together through the storm!” Literally. I like to imagine a literal phrase that conveys love in other “mere” words… think of “As you wish” in The Princess Bride. With encouragement like that, the storm loses it’s power. It may separate for a time, but it cannot ultimately separate those whose love for one another was forged by its menace, those who learned there is something more powerful than a storm.