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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Bookends (01/30/14)

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• TITLE: OUT OF PLACE
  By Linda Goergen
  02/02/14
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Bookends, my mother and I,
desperately trying
to hold
the book of our lives together.

For so many years
she lovingly and strongly
held up her end
and I mine,
each of us knowing
our place
and keeping it.
But now—
the hands of time
has changed our positions
and neither of us like the shifting.
We were happy
and comfortable
being left alone
nestled
in the dust of the past
that outlined
each of our spots.

Now—switched around—
we are off kilter,
leaning the wrong way,
shaky,
and it has loosened
the long held— tight grip
on the precious book
between us
allowing pages to flutter
and we are
blind-sided,
caught off guard,
as unexpected scenes
are wedged into our story.

Hurtful scenes—out of place scenes—

Mom looking at me,
stubborn, defiant,
refusing to take the medicine
I coax her to take.
But the picture is all wrong,
it should be me, the little girl,
refusing...

Mom telling me she can do it
by herself,
anger dancing in her tone
—But she can’t—
and I see me, a little girl,
fighting for my independence...

Me, denying mother
what is unhealthy for her,
then discovering she sneaks it anyway...

We both want to scream—but we don’t—

We hold it in.
I don’t want to be her mother—
she doesn’t want to feel like my child—
so resentment at being reversed
rests on us both,
a fury of unfairness
dances between us—
we hate
being bookends out of place.

We want to be put back,
the way we were,
the way it had always been—
but we both know
it isn’t going to happen.
Time is a demanding, unbending master.

But thankfully, both mother and I
know a master
far greater than time.
Jesus—
the great and eternal Rock,
that can hold and wedge
rickety bookends
strongly in place—
and keep us standing,
striving for understanding,
and still guarding
the precious book of love
He placed between us.

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