ONE LINE FROM AN ANCIENT POEM

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Not long ago I re-befriended a friend from sixty years ago, at least in terms of the way people tend to re-befriend people in our century; through social media.

Larry and I interacted a bit about our mutual memories. One day I posted a scan of a sketch I did of John F. Kennedy on my Facebook page. The next day I received a notification that my long- lost friend had left a comment under the sketch. When I read his post, I almost fell over.

“Royce, I remember a poem you wrote, and read to some of us just after President Kennedy died.” (and) “The first line was, ‘From ’61 to ’63 a great man led our country free’” (and) “I was wondering if you ever finished the poem” (and) “Do you still have it?”

To which I responded, “I remember that poem” (and) “I have no idea whether I finished it or not” (and) “No, I don’t have a clue where it is today”(and) “I am absolutely amazed that you remember a poem which I wrote a full 60 years ago!!!” (and) I didn’t say it, but I might well have said, “I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday, and you remember that trivial piece of writing from eons ago?”

How would a bit of verbiage from six decades ago still reside in the recesses of a man’s wrinkled gray matter? From my way of thinking it was something just short of a miracle.

Perhaps Larry’s wherewithal to remember that poetic line is kin to my own wherewithal to remember and continue to recite a dream that my college New Testament professor shared with our class less than a decade after I wrote those eleven words.

“Last night I dreamed a dream. In the dream I found myself standing in the presence of Jesus, Himself…” My professor went on to describe His beautiful face, but (strangely enough) emaciated body. Then she began to correlate the Jesus of her dream to the fragile, fickle body of Christ, His believers, on the earth.

I still share her dream, and have wondered if I am the only remaining former student to do so.

Perhaps our ability to remember such stuff as I have previously shared with you is all about what we find most compelling in life, and its subsequent imprint on the synapses of our brains. Just one facet of the amazing memory and communications center with which Providence has endowed us.

“From ’61 to ’63 a great man led our country free.”

 by William McDonald, PhD