The Arithmetic of Blessing

By Randy White on the Occasion of his Dad’s 90th Birthday

32,850 – The number of times you have opened your eyes
To see the room growing light,
Though not always the same room,
And closed them again at rest,
Though not always at peace.

32,850 – The number of days, I am quite sure, you found
Reason to smile,
Sometimes broadly,
Sometimes bravely,
Effortlessly one day,
As a discipline the next.

32,850 Cycles of hunger and filling,
The interruption of inspiration and the tedium of dullness,
Of love as an experience and love as a verb,
Of muscles taught and the bow unstrung,
Cycles of praying and waiting,
Of worry and unexpected wonder.

The Ancient Word says,
“Teach us to number our days and so gain a heart of wisdom”
We are to look ahead and know they are limited, and so use them well.
We are to look back to learn, and give thanks to an invisible hand.
Ninety revolutions around the sun clinging to this divine blue dot
Have taught you the truth of this, the
Unavoidable arithmetic of blessing.

God has been with you, Dad.
All 47,304,000 minutes of your 90 years,
Upholding, sustaining, training;
And now you stand, like those two wooden
Chinese scholars on your dresser,
Wise in the ancient knowledge of His goodness and grace,
Surrounded with love by those with fewer days and less experience Who still watch and learn.

Beaver Tail, O Beaver Tail

O Beaver Tail,
When in the market I look at you
My limbs go frail
My tongue turns blue
As if some beaver stout and hale
Had come and chewed my knees right through

rww c 2008