AN OLD MAN COMPLAINS OF CHANGE
 
I'm all for church evolving
and will joyfully celebrate 
Suzie and Sara's wedding,
though I first knew Suzie as Steve.
And I’ll no longer refer to God
as Father or Him 
when Creator includes everyone
and is every bit as righteous.

But I won’t sing Amazing Grace
to a disjointed new tune,
shout out “Amen!” 
after the soloist sings,
or lift my arms towards Heaven 
when I pray, 
things which seem to be
all the rage these days.

No, I’ll continue to close my eyes
bow my head and bite my tongue,
as my dour Dutch ancestors have done
for a thousand years.

My wife and I drove across Michigan to Grand Rapids the other day. We stopped at my brother and sister-in-law’s apartment for lunch, and my brother asked when I was going to post a new poem to this blog. After lunch we went to a baby shower, and an old friend there asked the same thing. So here you go, Tom and Tim. Here’s a poem written recently and revised just this morning. It’s always risky releasing a poem that might not be quite finished, but I’m confident this one is close enough. And, you might ask, why have I not been posting poems to this blog? Because for at least 6 months I have been working at turning a manuscript into an actual book. More on that soon. Very soon. Stay tuned. I’m excited.

Before leaving Grand Rapids we stopped to buy a fish fryer which my wife had located on Facebook Marketplace. It was in like-new condition, and we looked forward to frying up some lake perch* the next day. I ran around in the morning, buying everything we would need. I found the perch at Meijer for $19.99/pound, $4/pound more than several years ago when I last bought perch. Well, wouldn’t ya’ know it, we couldn’t get the damn fryer to heat up. We were pretty well convinced we’d been ripped off by the seemingly nice young family in Hudsonville who sold us the fryer. Forgive us, young family; we found the on/off switch this morning.

* If you’ve never had Great Lakes perch, you must add it to your bucket list. One of my fondest memories is of my parents taking the whole family – often with Grandma and Grandpa, too – to the Dew Drop Inn in Muskegon, Michigan, for perch, cole slaw and onion rings.

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A New Poem Every So Often
(No regular schedule right now; life gets in the way.)

Joseph Neely, all rights reserved.