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Pastoral Calls—Part 1 of 3

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Best Friends

Three boys; best friends at school; now men with wives.
Between them, seven children called them “Dad.”
They drank, they drove too fast and lost their lives.
“They were such good boys, too,” folks said. “How sad.”

A hunting trip each year—they had a blast!
It was just like old times—they laughed, and cussed—
Three good-old-boys until the very last
When that old cedar tree turned them to dust.

The wreck was such a mangled, tangled mess,
The Sheriff couldn’t tell who drove the truck.
As pastor I was called to pray and bless
Their souls the night their speed outran their luck.

The next day on that forest road I found
The bark torn off, their blood still on the ground.

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Scenes

“I’m going to die,” the cancer patient said.
As student Chaplain on the second floor
I stood beside the Scottish woman’s bed
And held her hand as I had done before.

“Our only child! How could God let her die?”
I had been called to visit that sad scene.
No words could turn that anguished parent’s cry.
A cement truck, head-on. She was nineteen.

“He brought the RV to a stop and died.”
I met her in a room at Motel Six.
We prayed and talked but mostly she just cried.
Her life, though broken, was not mine to fix.

At times like these all I could do was “be.”
And let God’s love be manifest in me.

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James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, The Road Not Taken, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.

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11 Responses

  1. Paul Buchheit

    James, as a pastor you must have comforted a lot of people dealing with sadness in their lives. Thanks for sharing these poems.

    Reply
  3. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    James, both of these poems speak to my heart. Your matter of fact, relatable delivery in “Best Friends” makes the fine line between life and death so real, with the closing couplet doubling down on that reality. I hope your potent words make people think before having that extra beer or giving in to that pedal-to-the-metal thrill. For me, this says it all: “As pastor I was called to pray and bless / Their souls the night their speed outran their luck.” – how easily lives are wasted.

    “Scenes” is a beautiful sonnet, even in its sadness. I work in a funeral home and the words in the closing couplet say everything there is to be said when one is observing grief. Thank you, James.

    Reply
  4. Cynthia Erlandson

    Poignantly expressed. I admire pastors (and others) who are gifted in helping people cope with dreadful situations like these.

    Reply
  5. C.B Anderson

    Your pastoral calling, James, might preclude judgment, but thanks to the powers that be, does not preclude discernment. I can’t wait for the next two parts. Moral philosophy is not a topic to be sniffed at.

    Reply
  6. James Sale

    Very moving poems, James – a simplicity of style that is deceptive in that the sonnets are so well crafted. Well done, excellent work.

    Reply
  7. James A. Tweedie

    I am pleased and grateful to have both the content and form of these two sonnets affirmed by the comments.

    Peptic form can often get in the way and cause a narrative to appear forced or disconnected.

    Here, however, I attempted to use the sonnet form as a means to highlight and shape the narrative so as to render the form’s appearance as seemingly incidental and virtually invisible. This is in contrast to the more classic sonnet tradition where the presence of the form is of equal importance to the narrative.

    In his comment, it appears that James appears to hint at this distinction.

    When we read a sonnet by Browning, Milton, Shakespeare (or McKenzie for that matter) we know we are reading a sonnet. Here my attempt was to do the opposite.

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Yes, James, you are right: that is exactly what I am alluding to, and it is highly effective – only a first-rank poet can manage something as tricky as this: as appearing to make the form disappear. And BTW please be careful of which sonneteers’ ghosts you invoke!

      Reply
  8. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Two superbly crafted poems with poignant text as likely just a few of the examples with which you had to deal as a pastor. As a deacon in the past, I had to deal with some tragedies, as well. I could feel the empathy that makes a wonderful pastor and yet all we can do is put the tragedy in some perspective with ultimate concluding phrases such as, “I am praying for you and your family. We are all in the hands of God.”

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  9. Joshua C. Frank

    James, these are really good! They show the rest of us how difficult being a pastor can be sometimes. The Shakespearean sonnet form helps it along, far from making it appear “forced and disconnected.”

    Reply
  10. David Watt

    These are truly beautiful, moving sonnets James. A narrative in sonnet form is unexpected yet works particularly well. I eagerly await Parts 2 and 3.

    Reply

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