Filling the Balloon ~ Riding the Wind

 In memory of Richard J. Havenga (June 5, 1923 ~ June 13, 2006)

For his 60th birthday,

our family gave Dad

a hot-air balloon ride.

I've never seen him

so happy, so excited,

with a smile illuminating his face.

He's lifting the fabric

so turbulent hot air

can fill the balloon.

He filled his family,

giving from meager means;

generous with the little he had.

Dad is glowing with

eager anticipation

of climbing into the sky.

Then the lift-off.

It's really happening.

He's riding the wind.

We watch Dad rise

and drift with the breeze

above the family he loved.

Over the land he farmed,

and the barn he filled

with hay and cattle.

Over the land he loved,

the fields he hunted,

the Grand River he fished.

Dad is still riding the wind.

Looking down at his family,

as we wait to join him up there.

© 2023 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Dad's Farm 

Transplanted

 for Lillian Havenga (1922 ~ 2021)

Lily-of-the-Valley

always grew under the thornapple

next to the trout stream

on your spacious farm.

You always admired them;

large linear leaves

with tiny, delicate blossoms,

petite like you always were.

I laid on my belly

to photograph them one spring,

and gave the photo to you

for your 97th birthday,

as you laid on your back

in your narrow bed in the home;

all of us knowing you wouldn't

be seeing them growing again.

But they still grow there,

and in the spring I will go there

to transplant some lilies 

into the ground around 

the gravestone for you and Dad.

© 2022 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Grand Haven, Michigan (by Mary Havenga)

Windows

In memory of Peter Draugalis Sr. (June 29, 1895 ~ September 10, 1959)

When I was eleven,
my upstairs bedroom was small,
but my responsibility was large.

I had to pray hard every day
for the cancer to go away
from my grandpa,
who had to go away
to a special hospital
in Ann Arbor
for those mysterious
cobalt treatments. 

He had no windows
in his hospital room.
I didn't think this was fair
for a man who loved
to be outdoors,
for a man who loved
to hunt and fish,

for a man I loved
when he let me hunt
between himself and my dad.

They would send me
into brush piles,
down the swales,
through briers and brambles.

If I "jumped a rabbit",
one of them would fire his shotgun.
Grandpa carried a 20-gauge.
Dad had the stronger 12-gauge.

I longed to hear that gunshot
again in October;
only a month away.

As I stared out my window,
I studied the east fencerow,
tangled with thick brush;
sumac and saplings
hung with wild grapevines,
maybe a rabbit hiding
in the dense briers that
curled along the ground.

I watched out my window
as dusk arrived.
I listened out my window
as a whip-poor-will
sang his melancholy song.

I prayed out my window:
"Please God, give Grandpa
a little more time."

© 2020 Richard Havenga

Endnote: 

Today, in my upstairs bedroom, I have two shotguns: a 12 gauge, and a 20 gauge.