J. Barrie Shepherd, Author at The Presbyterian Outlook

Mid-March (early mud season)

March 29, 2019 by J. Barrie Shepherd Leave a Comment

Didn’t mean to go this far, but my insistent terrier – all eight pounds – tugs me toward the lumbered steps that lead beyond the woods onto the bluff. Lingering patches of last Monday’s snowfall make me step careful, leaning wary on the cane, while savoring the icy crunch of boots, crisp imprints where, till then, only dainty-hoof deer had trod. Leaning across the split-log fence along the edge, I pause to monitor the gulls patrolling of the shoreline, check out a bobbing congregation of brown ducks and eiders – no tiny brood as yet, to cluster alongside. The sun, through snowbank-heaps of cloud, transforms the surface dark-blue/green to momentary swaths of vivid aquamarine, out there toward the horizon. While to the north, along the bay, distant figures of other walkers with their ecstatic off-leash companions swirl the sands of Higgins Beach. And in the woods behind the silent sap is headed upward, long dormant foliage is pressing hard against old winter’s buds, … [Read more...]

Tagged With: poetry

Borrowed Time

March 11, 2019 by J. Barrie Shepherd Leave a Comment

These forty days are Lent to us – not counting Sundays – a blessed space in time in which to step aside, get out of line, drop out of the mad rush toward the six-foot drop and bring oneself to life again. Six weeks, say – more or less – until the note falls due, those generous terms expire, and the piper must be paid under the palm branches and dark twisted olive trees. … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Lent

Remembering

January 22, 2019 by J. Barrie Shepherd Leave a Comment

Where I left the car keys, the remote for the TV, that letter from the lawyer, my spectacles and pills. I must have left my gloves somewhere. And as for that umbrella that the kids gave me last Christmas… Lost objects occupy these latter days like an invading host, demand their dreary ransom of the hours spent in searching – pockets, drawers, desks, and sofas – to locate whatever’s missing. Might there be, somewhere, an eternal Lost and Found, a place where folk and missing things are reunited, where a sympathetic clerk roams miles of shelves and cubby holes until he finds just what it is you’re looking for and sets it on the counter with a smile? And if such a place existed, what would I ask for first? – J. Barrie Shepherd … [Read more...]

Tagged With: poetry • retirement

Compline – January 6th

January 3, 2019 by J. Barrie Shepherd Leave a Comment

No snow tonight, the air stands vibrant, crystal sharp, expectant, as if waiting for a bell, or gong, some resonating sound, to summon our attention to this surrounding cosmos. The scene above is strewn with light, an encircling atmosphere that sings – resounds this holy night – of grace. This is a grace of majesty, sweeping wide across the firmament these sheer rivers, swirling currents, vast seas of circling brightness. But also, at this festival of light unveiled, an inner, deeper grace of mercy at the merely mortal shining forth before the royal presence of the gentile kings, the awful tribute of their gifts. My urgent terrier tugs me toward warmth and sleep, ready for rest, enveloped by this scintillating splendor, enfolded in a radiance shed far beyond all human power of seeing, praying. … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Epiphany

Tidings

December 3, 2018 by J. Barrie Shepherd Leave a Comment

This season’s festive cards that crush and crowd the mails bear witness to the limits, all those insistent boundaries that ever mark and mar our loving. Time diminishes daily, the distant miles remain the same. Lives we have brushed against and learned to care for now seem too far removed to reach again, remember and renew the days we shared. But still we cherish them, refuse, despite the years, to let them go, and want to let them know that within the promise of the manger child our hope is yet alive, a hope writ large across this flimsy, brightly colored card. – J. Barrie Shepherd … [Read more...]

Essence of the Season

December 26, 2017 by J. Barrie Shepherd Leave a Comment

It’s about the giving, really. So that all those holy folk who moan about the marketing and such can tend to miss the deep, abiding truth that, for a month, at least, and once in every year, all sorts of people seek to find new, and surprising ways to make other people smile, ways to say, in varying degrees of warmth, “I love you,” or at least, “I care,” ways to call a temporary halt to grab-and-gain, and set aside a time and place for simple gratitude instead. Given the way we spend the remainder of our days and months, one might be excused for calling this an honest-to-God miracle. … [Read more...]

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