Frank Hubeny

It Is Well With My Soul

Every Sunday we see them
walking down the aisle
bent and hobbled.
An elderly man leads
a wizened old woman.
“Here I am, Lord, if you need me,”

Tottering along behind,
the gray-haired son, head down,
slouched, uneven gait, slightly rumpled.
“It is well with my soul.”

They enter the pew, bow their heads in prayer.
The son rocks to-and-fro in a steady rhythm
throughout Mass.
“As the Father has loved me so I have loved you.”

Mass over, the family files out of the pew,
out of church, silent, they speak to no one
as the choir sings,
“’I love you, you are Mine’, says the Lord.”

Poetry above by Pat Kopanda, photography below by Frank Hubeny.

Linked to dVerse Open Link Night.

Cornfield During Winter

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One-Liner Wednesday – Levitate

The next time I levitate I’m going to make sure no one’s watching so they don’t feel obligated to bring me back down to earth.

Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday. It occurred to me I doubt I would have thought of this levitating theme without having read V.J. Knutson’s poem, Levitating.

#1linerWeds badge by Cheryl, at dreamingreality646941880.wordpress.com/

Between Identities

 
I

Sitting, singing on the street,
Voice turned-off from drugs,
His fingers playing on and on.
They still recall an ancient song
That brought him love and hugs.


II

She pours her years into the child
Who digs soft, shallow sand.
He takes those years and buries them
To seed their future land.


III

The trolley takes me round and round
For free. I listen to the sound
Of Spanish first, some English, too.
The Sun knows what it has to do.
The sky will keep the water blue.
I board and leave the ground.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where Gina is hosting with the theme of balancing identities with poetic hum. I hope between those three identities there rises a poetic hum.

Technology: Chisel

Brad knew he didn’t have the proper tools to do the job right, but he rarely did. The door and opener cost under $50. He’d reuse the old hinges.

He did have to buy a chisel. They told him he couldn’t return it when he was done. He could live with that.

After sort of measuring everything, he realized it wasn’t as easy as he thought to carve out where the hinges should go.

Eventually in spite of everything he hung the door.

Happy wife happy life: she was happy. For the most part the new door even closed.

Linked to Carrot Ranch where the theme for the 99-word stories is chisel and to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge where the theme is technology.

One-Liner Wednesday – Life Journey

We’re all on life journeys, but we sometimes forget those around us are on one too.

Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday. The idea for this one-liner came from reading Pragalbha’s poem, Often this is true.

Mardi Gras

Pleasure gets a chance to say,
"Pain may not do you much good."
Sacrifice is on its way
Doing only what it could.

Linked to dVerse Poetics with the theme of Mardi Gras.

Spike

 
I practice breathing given air.
It doesn’t matter that I like
To spike what’s real with worries where
What’s unreal gets the loudest mike.
Sometimes practicing goes slow
Wondering if I’ll ever know
How to breathe. I’d rather not.
Mindlessly I breathe a lot.

Linked to dVerse Quadrille where De Jackson is hosting with theme work “spike”.

Other Worldly

I move my black mouse and click. I know I should be doing other things.

“Like what?” That silent voice inside me asks.

Well, like watching this orange sunset or bothering that white bird sitting for no good reason on the railing or contemplating the other worldly mysteries of this grand universe.

Knowing I have no clue, I hear. “Really, like what?”

So I let my inner squeaky wheel, my imaginary “friend”, guide me downward into the depths of another suspicious, weedy, mosquito-loving rabbit hole I have no business exploring. But what else, really, do I have to do?

Linked to Carrot Ranch’s March 7th 99-word flash fiction challenge using “mouse”. Also this will be linked on Monday to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “in the realm of the other worldly”.