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Esther Kem Thomas - Later Works
If anyone has additional information, poems by Esther Kem Thomas (she often included them in her correspondence), or other reminiscences they would like to share, email me.
Everyday Mother
Which of the many, many days
Shall I select as best?
Which incident is singled out
As better than the rest?
One day of her suggests to me
Another and another--
For which one can I, on this day,
Say, "Thank you, thank you, Mother?"
Maybe once, years back it was,
A little girl cried, "Mom!"
And nursed a bump or bruise until
The gentle, healing balm
Of kisses drove the hurt away.
I recollect another day
She handed me my broken doll,
All mended good as new,
And, by magic, once again
The sun came shining through
My childish tears-- and tears and smiles
Made rainbows of each other--
For this then, on her day, shall I
Say, "Thank you, thank you, Mother!"
Down through the years I've handed her
Stray parts of me to mend,
And in the workshop of her heart,
The ragged edges blend
As good as new. I'm confident
Should I think of no other,
She'll know I say of every day,
"Thank you, thank you, Mother!"
from Ideals Magazine (Mother's Day issue) Vol.49, No.3.
Things to Ponder
If all the water were sucked from the globe
With jagged coasts left, shore to shore,
I betcha the beautiful earth would resemble
A half-eaten old apple core!.......
Included in a letter to Ron Morris, November 5, 1990.
Familiar Street
Give me the time to savor well
The taste of home and friends,
The time to thrill my senses with
The thrill their nearness lends.
Each house, each shrub, each dog and cat
I'll want to pause and greet;
It seems each tree has strings to me
Along Familiar Street.
The world won't see the paths I do,
The signposts and the turns;
But when they're walked day after day
A person sort of learns
The angle to the grocery store,
A short-cut to the park,
Where bulging walks might trip you up,
The hazards after dark.
But best of all, the well-worn paths
My inner eye restores
Are those, in memory, between
My own and dear friends' doors.
Oh, some I've trod in aproned style,
Sometimes in party gown,
And often when our paths would cross
We'd "talk" new ones downtown!
It brings a smile and quick-drawn breath
To know that soon my feet
Will walk among those folks of mine
Along Familiar Street.
Give me capacity to hold
The friendliness of "here,"
To share its warmth with someone else
Who finds his going drear.
Somehow there are no strangers left
Among the ones I greet
When friendship paves remembered ways
Back to Familiar Street!
Remember When, Ideals Publishing Corporation, 1991
When I Was Ten or So
When I was ten or so
I owned a woods--a river too,
And overhead, it all was mine,
That vast expanse of blue;
Horizons were unlimited
Where I could see and see--
Oh, I was rich in God's estate,
This all belonged to me!
My world was drifting leisurely,
When I was ten or so;
Why, I'd spend hours, still, alone,
And watch the river go;
I knew its shallows and its deeps,
Its gentle undertow;
The place to wade and where to swim
And how the currents flow.
I was a great explorer, then,
And on my hands and knees
Crawled into thickets, dank and cool,
And had my special trees
Where I would climb and sit aloof
Like some prodigious bird;
I knew the make of every nest
And each bird-call I heard!
To reminisce brings longing thought,
A wish to once again
Go wandering through that estate
I claimed when I was ten,
But threads from which we weave our dreams
Shrink with each passing year--
I wouldn't want my river dwarfed
Or my woods to disappear.
A fringe of trees along a stream;
It was so big to me--
I'll carry in my heart the way
My childish eyes could see!
And when the times seem strenuous,
In memory I'll go,
Meand'ring through the day I knew
When I was ten or so.
Ideals Friendship, Ideals Vol. 56, No. 4 September, 1999
Neighbors
Some folks can move away and then they're gone.
And when they are, you scarcely can remember
The sort of way their life was patterned on,
And if they left in August or December,
Or how they looked--how easy they were making it,
Or if their hand was warm and firm on shaking it!
Strange how they took their lives and drifted on--
Once they were here, but when they're gone, they're gone!
But other folks can leave and still remain--
Seems like their ways, once loved, are here forever.
The way they spoke or smiled is clear and plain;
Their fellowship from yours no miles could sever.
They made their place, and once they finished making it
There's no erasing, blurring, nor forsaking it!
Steady and clear the fires of friendship burn,
That heart and hearth shall welcome their return!
Ideals Friendship, Ideals Vol. 56, No. 4 September, 1999