These are from fall of 2007, my one semester at Houghton College.
I found this haiku in the front of my notebook for advanced composition with Dr. Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb:
If at first you
Can't count to five syllables,
You're probably me.
I found this letter to God in the back of my notebook for English literature survey with Dr. Wardwell. That was the best class I have ever taken. During finals, I was pacing the lengths of the bookshelves memorizing slices of poetry and their authors. When I wrote this letter, I had just taken a long look at Gulliver's Travels and was about to move on to The Rape of the Lock. But my mind stopped. So I began:
I want to tell You all about it by a shimmering stream, beneath a cerulean sky. But I have a light brown study carrel with a light that hums next to a window and a heater. And I have a very serious amount of studying to do for my final in two days. But, God, I'm just so SO--! I want to tell You under a starry sky, with the world beneath You and I together. We'd watch each star as it watched us, and You'd tell me a secret and I would make You laugh.
But I have a hundred (or two dozen) goodbyes to make. And who knows for how long it will be? One year? This lifetime? All eternity? Jesus only You could know... I'm just so--! So mad and clueless, expectant and helpless. So scared and tired, excited and weary. And not busy. Like I should be.
Even though I walk the shores, all the mountains, town after town, one city, then another, even though I see Your creation right beside all that of man, I will always listen for Your voice. It always calls me here. To begin again at the beginning, while I'm in the middle of everything busy, getting ready to make a change. I'll start with You. And I'll end with You.
