Tag Archives: Heaven

Heaven

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I knew a week ago which poem I would put up on Father’s Day. My dad has done much more for me, my brothers and my mom than any of us could ever really know, and I thank God for putting him in our lives. But for all that he’s done, I know without a doubt that the greatest gift he ever gave me was to introduce me to God and inspire my faith. You continue to be my mentor and my hero every day. I love you, Dad.

Heaven

 

At first, it was just my dad and a story,

A story so satisfying that I stopped him and asked to die.

He spoke of the seat of Everlasting,

A sunny castle of immortality

Surrounded by every perfect piece of potential,

All things presently impassable;

He spoke of Paradise.

From a thick, noted script he went on to teach

All the tales of true triumph,

Gotten in the great name of goodness.

 

But forever his first story followed me,

So that frequently I figured what form

That unimaginable majesty might take.

And as I grew out of thick-rimmed glasses and asthmatic gasps,

I started to grasp the ways in which such wonder

Would awaken my heart

And render my world no more than a wink and a grin

From a stranger selling secrets.

 

It was in dark mornings following deathly nights

When robins would arise and sing to me,

And only me,

That I had made it once more;

It was in that timeless moment

When sound ceased to insist itself

Among fallen and falling leaves,

Resting on a wind-felled tree;

It was through a drink from the spring

And a stop atop a mountain land beyond man;

It was in the relentlessly luxurious rains

And the immensely joyful shout of thunder

From its home high above and yet so near;

It is in seeing the leaf- and feather-filtered sunlight

Speckled on the forest floor

That my soul surrenders, somersaults and sacrifices itself

To the knowledge that this,

Finally,

Must be what Heaven looks like.

 

© Evan Trout, 2012