The Ash Wind Sigh

By William Flewelling

My poems have helped me see things for years now. Looking back on my poems, written and now collected, I discover I see things anewnot only the remembered incidents (when that happens) but also the vision created in my mind by the poem itself. These poems, collected from the parts of the life I ran past again recently, are things that offer glimpses of what is seen and what that seeing seems to mean. I find that poems best serve me in becoming the creators of insights and perspective. The poems in this book have been giving that gift to me again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546257356

William Flewelling

I am a retired minister from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) living in central Illinois. Led by a request from Mildred Corwin of Manua OH when I arrived there in 1976, I long developed and led a series of bible studies there and in LaPorte IN and New Martinsville WV. These studies proved to be very feeding to me in my pastoral work and won a certain degree of following in my congregations. My first study was on 1 Peter, chosen because I knew almost nothing about the book. I now live quietly in retirement with my wife of 54 years, a pair of dogs and several cats.

Book preview

© 2018 William Flewelling. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  08/23/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5736-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5735-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018910150

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Also By This Author

Poetry

Time Grown Lively

From My Corner Seat

Enticing My Delight

The Arthur Poems

From Recurrent Yesterdays

In Silhouette

To Silent Disappearance

Teasing The Soul

Allowing The Heart To Contemplate

As Lace Along The Wood

To Trace Familiarity

The Matt Poems

Elaborating Life

The Buoyancy of Unsuspected Joy

To Haunt The Clever Sheer Of Grace

The Christmas Poems

Life Is Employed

Adrift On Seas Of Strangeness

Composure In Constraint

An Elegance That Dawdles

Devotional

Some Reflective Prayers

Reflective Prayers: A Second Collection

A Third Collection Of Reflective Prayers

For Your Quiet Meditation

A Fourth Collection Of Reflective Prayers

Cantica Sacra

A Fifth Collection Of Reflective Prayers

Directions Of A Pastoral Lifetime

Part I: Pastoral Notes, Letters To Anna, Occasional Pamphlets

Part II: Psalm Meditations, Regula Vitae

Part III: Elders’ Studies

Part IV: Studies

Part V: The Song Of Songs: An Attraction

Inn-By-The-Bye Stories

vols. 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Exegetical Works

From The Catholic Epistles: Bible Studies

Paul’s Letter To The Romans: A Bible Study

The Book Of Hebrews: A Bible Study

Letters Pauline and Pastoral: Bible Studies

The First Letter Of Paul To The Corinthians: A Bible Study

The Gospel According To Luke 1:1 Through 9:50: A Bible Study

all published by AuthorHouse.com

Contents

Foreword

1.     Stray Shopping Cart

2.     A Company Of Talkers

3.     A Spectral View

4.     Among The Crowds

5.     In Season Or Out

6.     With Going And Coming

7.     Responding To The Incidental

8.     Serious Admission

9.     Testing The Ways

10.   CoRecognition

11.   A Little Golden Loves

12.   Waiting To Begin

13.   Telephone Consumption

14.   As I Loom Above Her Play

15.   According To The Script

16.   Not Nearly Bold Today

17.   Not Less Than Everything

18.   Great Grandmother’s Delight

19.   At Fading Dusk

20.   The Quiet In Command

21.   Drivers Along This Hill Top Route

22.   She Loves To Sing Alive

23.   My First Sighting

24.   By Chorale Means

25.   Reclining For The Dentist’s Cure

26.   Margaret Aglow

27.   Old Friend Comes As Old Friends Sit

28.   The Oral Gospel Posed

29.   Barista At The Nearing Noon

30.   Black Leather Boots

31.   Out Of The Hills

32.   Sandwich In Hand: Once Bitten

33.   Glide

34.   Smooth Elegance At Work

35.   Gingerbread

36.   The Chill Engages The Moment

37.   A Second Coming

38.   Imagine …

39.   Come Strolling Bye

40.   The Busy Red Cross Nurse

41.   Another Classmate Dies

42.   The Flair Of Mother’s Hair

43.   Betraying Instincts

44.   Engaging Glances

45.   With Nary A Correcting Afterthought

46.   A Quiet Morning

47.   Amid The C-Major

48.   Electric Coral

49.   Lone Doe

50.   At Archangelo Corelli’s di Natale

51.   Perspective

52.   Crows On The Ridge Road

53.   Roadside Pose

54.   In Lively View

55.   Just Coffee While Havoc Wreaks

56.   Sunshine Warmth

57.   Competitive Deciding

58.   Almost Ready

59.   Rejuvenating

60.   Decoration Is Paired Studs

61.   Telephone Interrupt

62.   Study Break

63.   Contactless Eyes

64.   Late Afternoon, Raw December

65.   Caught Eyes

66.   Recovering Delight

67.   Putting Things In Order

68.   The Little Sister

69.   At Last

70.   Late Start

71.   As Eye Catches Eye

72.   Assured

73.   Glimpsed In The Brush

74.   She Goes To Read The Poem

75.   Choice Remade

76.   Quite Subtly Solemn

77.   As Yet Unformulated, Half-Stated Plans

78.   The Ghosts Of Years Before

79.   Eye-Catching Images

80.   The Wind, She Says

81.   Heard Again, A Second Time

82.   For A Parting Merry Christmas

83.   Against the Run of Evening Practice

84.   Bright Freedom On Display

85.   Making A Book

86.   First Seen This Spring

87.   Two Sisters Clothed In White

88.   Upon Good Night

89.   The Gift Of Christmas Pleasure

90.   As Lunch-Rush Fades Away

91.   The Shepherd Of Two Sheep

92.   Replacement Lights – And Original

93.   Met On The Corridor

94.   Within The Window

95.   Completing The Duet

96.   A Warming Tide

97.   Face Seen Between Two Heads

98.   A Momentary Catch

99.   This Modern Age

100. Out Of The Fog

101. At The Salutation Carol

102. With Urgency

103. White Smudge In The Dark

104. Illumined Hollow

105. Elegant Concentration

106. A Midnight Overcast

107. d’Aquin In Flight

108. Control In Curiosity

109. With Bach’s Prelude in G

110. The Quiet Pair

111. That Sort Of Abandon

112. Overheard

113. With Noted Caring

114. Above the Non-Existent Din

115. A Momentary Grasp

116. Suddenly Present

117. Swinging Bells

118. An Unattended Basket

119. A Final Holiday Greeting

120. In Moistening

121. In Spite Of Said Delay

122. With Just Enough Ease Today

123. Nearing Memorial Day Again

124. The Innocent Aside To Shopping

125. A Banker At The Financial Crisis

126. By The Door: Rue Twenty One Etcetera

127. Guided To The Pew

128. At Laurel Falls

129. At Last

130. Waiting Her Turn

131. Sam And Joe Together

132. Watching The Camera: All Herself

133. Expectations In Waiting

134. A Bit From One To Another

135. Do You Remember?

136. A Nickel, With A Smile

137. More Than Half A Life Ago

138. Ornamental Sprite

139. And Now Sierra

140. One Bird

141. Construction Mode

142. An Unintending Face

143. Then Rain Abated

144. Better In Full Flow

145. Some Matter Of Poinsettias

146. Inspection By A Glance

147. Rock-a-bye Comfort

148. If Only Memory Would Wait

149. In Spite Of It All

150. Thirst Impelled

About the Author

Foreword

These collections of poems come, like so much that I do, largely by mining the archives. I started writing poems in the early 1980s, after recognizing that in part of my supposedly prose writing a certain cadence and flow that hinted of poetic undercurrents. I collected them first in a four half sheet format titled Sundry Prayers And Thoughts [and noted to myself under the acronym SPAT]. Those continued through 500 issues of untitled poems, becoming essentially practice pieces, more and more metrical in form.

In addition, sometime in the mid-1980s I began to write some pieces that were titled, supplied separately on half sheets. As far as early August 2003 those poems continued in hardcopy format, filed in file boxes. I still have them that way. Changes in circumstance and technology caused the poems to be kept in electronic format after that – first on floppy discs and then on J-drives [or thumb drives] and now simply on hard disc on this computer. Some unfortunately got lost in the shuffle, but most of them can be found. Those, hard copy and electronic copy alike, are the archives that I mine to find poems that I wish to collect in published format.

Other genres among the things I have written over the decades, and have in typed format, largely in hardcopy format, are also being converted into form that goes through the self-publishing process. These include Bible Studies [dating largely from 1976 through 1989], mediations [from 1981] and reflective prayers [from 1983], stories [from 1981], hymn texts [from 1986]. Other formats and genre are collected in the Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime series.

Revisiting these occasions across the decades has been valuable to me, personally. And I am hopeful that the products here revisited and largely retyped and hence selectively edited may prove of interest and value to a larger audience than had been considered when the process was begun.

As this collection is of poetry, some new pieces filtered in among those from 2008 and 2014, a few from earliest 2015, I find the poems personally satisfying. I hope you find them enjoyable as well.

William Flewelling

Stray Shopping Cart

                                  The seven sparrows perch

                                  about the shopping cart

                                  deserted between cars

                                  in Wal-Mart’s parking lot.

                                  I see them in my mirror

                                  as I have backed into

                                  my chosen slot. I pause

                                  to see them calmly sit,

                                  adjust a bit to take

                                  a different perch – the wire

                                  secure and sure to foot.

                                  Then, as I open up

                                  my door behind them,

                                  they take to wing, disperse

                                  in shotgun scatter from

                                  the sound. The cart remains

                                  alone and bothersome

                                  at someone’s callous shrug.

                                  I push it between cars

                                  and to the stated place

                                  for those who fetch to claim

                                  return of it for another

                                  occasion of neglect.

WCF

13 September 2008

A Company Of Talkers

                                Post high school girls assemble,

                                all eight or ten of them.

                                They sit and drink and eat

                                but mostly chatter, find

                                their months away converge

                                in pleasure, satisfaction –

                                the sort of stuff they want

                                and now rehearse with friends