an old writer and his words

  • WANDERER

    I was too long an Israelite wandering in a desert searchingfor the promised identity, followingon faith and a belief that allwould eventually be revealed.I created images of you, of whoI thought you might be, hiddenfrom all, just a voice in my dreams.I was an Aaron, the loyal siblingnever questioning why I livedin their always slightly…

    Lou Faber

  • THE VEIL OF TIME

    I still search for you behind the veilof time; I cannot look away.I wonder what you saw that night,what you felt in that unexpected,unwanted moment you couldn’t escape.I know I am struggling to reach intoa world I do not yet wish to enter,but all I recall are your eyes, notas they were that night but…

    Lou Faber

  • STILL MOURNING

    I think about you often, lying besidemy grandparents on the hillsideoverlooking the Kanawha River,bathed in the utter silencethat only the dead can clearly hear.I think of you more often than shewho replaced you, she who laterreplaced me with her own, Ian adjacency, still useful butno longer fully or truly valued.I think of you lovingly, knowingfor…

    Lou Faber

  • A GIFT

    As your birthday approaches, Mother,I should pause and thank youfor your bequest of grace, a gift youleft me on you passing ten years beforeI found you, found myself again.It was more than the helical part of methat finally became apparent, morethan a heritage imagined but unknown.It was something as simple asa college yearbook picture, for…

    Lou Faber

  • CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

    Walking back through my lifeI can now begin to see when and wherethings changed, where I changed, wherethe place I thought of as my homebecame alien, altered, as thoughthe weathering of time wore awaywhat I now know were carefully appliedveneers, real enough seeming to meand to others who stopped to visit.And when the music changed…

    Lou Faber

  • THE PAPER

    He was 11 when he first discovered it. Jimmy knew immediately that (1) it was something remarkable, (2) he didn’t understand it at all, and (3) he dare not let his parents know he had it. It was (3) that gave him the most worry. Not what they would do to him if they discovered…

    Lou Faber

  • STILL MOURNING

    I think about you often, lying besidemy grandparents on the hillsideoverlooking the Kanawha River,bathed in the utter silencethat only the dead can clearly hear.I think of you more often than shewho replaced you, she who laterreplaced me with her own, Ian adjacency, still useful butno longer fully or truly valued.I think of you lovingly, knowingfor…

    Lou Faber

  • MY SORT OF SISTER

    I don’t remember her crib,but it was probably the one that Ihad only recently outgrown, butthe wood was polished pine,the rails topped with plasticthat I had dented with some cribtoy or other, the mattress soft,a mobile hanging off the end.She cried a lot at first, and mothersaid that was what babies did,but she said I…

    Lou Faber

  • IN THE PROPER ORDER

    You would think that when you have hadthree fathers they would have hadthe decency to die in the order in whichthey came into your life, that is, after all,the natural order of things or the logical one.My original, who I found more than two decadesafter he finally found peace in 1987 is nothingmore that an…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS IS NOT

    This is not the poemmy birth mother meant to writemeant to tuck in my blanketwhen I was handed overto the adoption agencymeant to follow methrough childhood, youth,adulthood, to be readon the day my sons were born.It would be a poemthat would be etcheddeeply into my psychethat would echo in my mindduring the quiet moments.She never…

    Lou Faber