Through the Storms: A Collection of Poems and Vignettes

By Linda Garrett Hicks

Storms of life will rage. Whether they are physical, emotional, or spiritual, ill winds will sooner or later blow turmoil through each of our lives. Through the Storms is a collection of poems and vignettes embracing everyday life--the highs and the lows, the joys and the sorrows, the calm and the fury--as seen through the eyes of poet Linda Garrett Hicks.

Grouped into five distinctive categories, Through the Storms offers words of comfort and encouragement in life's ever-changing circumstances:

Faith and Inspiration
Love and Friendship
Childhood, Home, and Mother
Nature and Creation
Vignettes

Take a walk Through the Storms. Laugh with the flowers. Cry with the rain. Smile to know that beyond the clouds, the sun is always shining!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449771270

Linda Garrett Hicks

"I am a Christian, a wife and mother, and a writer--in that order. Everything else that I am is sheltered beneath this umbrella." Linda Garrett Hicks is a writer and poet from rural Middle Tennessee. Through the Storms, written over a period of nearly half a century, reflects this truism.

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Copyright © 2012 by Linda Garrett Hicks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Author photo (back cover) courtesy of

Master Artists Studios, Inc., Burkesville, KY

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7128-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7129-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7127-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919222

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/19/2012

Contents

Preface     Homage to My Pencil & Paper

Faith & Inspiration

Through the Storms

The Image in the Mirror

My Father’s Boat

Fit for Thee

Come and Dine

Freefall

Lesson from the Lemon

The Visit

What Did You Say?

Seasons

The Offering

What Matter, the Years?

I Shall Ever Be Grateful

Treasures

A Joyful Journey

The Millstone

I Am the Lady

Silver Linings

The Needle

Sorting Out Your Troubles

Love & Friendship

Secretly Watched

She’s Always There

Fortress

Pretty Amy’s Smile

Just Three Little Words

Before You

Spoken in Love

Hues

The Aftermath

Gentle Words

The Years, Like Snow

In My Heart and On My Mind

Demise

Childhood, Home, & Mother

Shadows on the Wall

Babes for Me

Tender Buds

Of Little Importance

Mem’ries Kept

The Message

Captured

Little Girl o’ Mine

Forever Yours

Clifford

Dying Dreams

If These Walls Could Talk

Tomorrow’s Hope

Leader of the Pack

The Old Family Trunk

Blue Snow

I Remember

Window to the Soul

Nature & Creation

Spring!

Sound of the Quiet

Winter’s Store

Old Stone Walls

Hope Renewed

Midnight Caller

The Dying Day

Saith the Flower

Winds

Drought

Vignettes

Mountain Stream

Summer Storm

Anniversary of a Farmwife

Dear Daughter…

I, as the Leaf

Boy-Child

Childhood in a Box

I Wait for Death

That Which Calls Me

About the Author

Dedicated

to those who,

down through the years,

encouraged me

in my writings—

who lovingly reminded me

that gifts are from God

and are meant

to be shared.

Thank you.

You fed my very soul!

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am,

therewith to be content.

Philippians 4:11 (KJV)

Homage to My Pencil & Paper

A lways my dearest friends—my well-sharpened pencil and a pad of paper—there when I need them most! Long, empty nights find us together, me needing to talk for whatever reason, and they, quietly and patiently, waiting to listen. Whether it’s worries or aches or simply sleep flitting out my bedroom window to return only with the dawn—whatever the reason—they are always there to see me through solitary hours.

We’ve been through a lot together, my friends and I—rejoicing when my heart could not contain some wonderful, undeserved joy; or mourning when my heart broke and spilled sorrow all over my soul. When I was so alone that I thought the void would swallow me up, I looked, and there were my friends waiting to comfort me.

How lost I would be without them! I take pencil in hand, watch it glide across the crisp whiteness of the paper, and out pours my deepest thoughts, my truest feelings, the essence of me—and the finished piece then holds me, comforts me, and tells me I’m okay.

No night is too dark. No burden is too heavy. No hour is too lonely. They wait for me, my pencil and paper, and they urge me to pursue, to conquer, to endure… or perhaps simply to survive.

For all the times before and for all the times to be, thank you, my dearest friends!

2004

Faith & Inspiration

Through