My friend Paul Phillips passed away this past Friday, November 8. He is a good man and I miss him. I wrote this for him the other night.
The Chain-Link Fence
There’s a chain-link fence
Between two buildings
Hope…and Faith
And a playground where children dance,
skip…and dream
In a never changing world
If there’s a tear, it rolls away
Like a loose soccerball, only to be
Kicked back into the playing field
We used to pause on the
Best of days, lean against the links
Like Charlie Brown and Linus, talk of
Baseball or the Beatles, our lives, our work.
Children grown or growing
Bright sun, floating leaves
Cast off from the trees,
Out of the corner of my eye
I’d see them land in solitude,
Softly…gently on the walk.
Now, I stop by the gate
And, pretend he’s doing donuts
On a big red tricycle,
Running bases in the street
Marrying his wife,
Watching kids come into the world
Landing lightly in a place where
The things we don’t imagine
Never come to fruition
And everyone is given
One day more.
Doug Hoekstra 