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  • Author's Testimony & Introduction--FAQS
    • Table of Contents
  • 1 His Kingdom to Prepare
  • 2 My Choice Companions
  • 3 Companions
  • 4 Companions II
  • 5 A Mother's MTC Farewell
  • 6 Who Will Dare for Christ
  • 7 To a Chosen Generation
  • 8. I Feel Such a Strangeness
  • 9. Not Me
  • 10. My Brother's Father
  • 11. Not Far Away
  • 12. Questions for Our Leaders
  • 13. Questions From Our Leaders
  • 14. The Visit
  • 15. Show and Tell
  • 16. Within Our Slumber We Will Dream
  • 17. Servants in the Shadows
  • 18. Joya Escojida/Chosen Jewel
  • 19. Las Aguas Del Senor/The Waters of the Lord
  • 20. Come Fasting to the Meeting House
  • 21. As Voices Join in Sacred Sabbath Worship
  • 22. A Child's Baptismal Day
  • 23. In Temple White
  • 24. Temple Hill
  • 25. This Precious Day
  • 26. The Translators
  • 27. I Your Husband Who Have Fallen [First Poem of The Repentance Trilogy.]
  • 28. The Wife's Song
  • 29. Remember Not Past Years
  • 30. A Priesthood Lullaby
  • 31. The Season of Our Need
  • 32. Cherished Daughter, Valiant Servant
  • 33. Daughter, Hear and Heed Your Savior's Voice
  • 34. Bird Mom
  • 35. Eric's Song
  • 36. A Wedding Song of Praise
  • 37. Testimonies to My Daughters
  • 38. Prayer for a Caring Granddaughter
  • 39. Firstborn Son and Firstborn Daughter
  • 40. Father's Day
  • 41 The Hospital
  • 42. The Children of the World
  • 43. For the Healers of the World
  • 44. Simple Heroes of Our Day
  • 45. To This World So Prone to Peril
  • 46. Somewhere
  • 47. Servant of Servants
  • 48. We Wish That You Were Here
  • 49. The Teacher
  • 50. To Protect Marriage and Family
  • 51. Earth's Unborn Children Weeping
  • 52. Prayers for the Peacekeepers
  • 53. That Patriot Dreams Will Come to Pass
  • 54. We Would Do It All Again
  • 55. So Much More
  • 56. Passage and Pilot
  • 57. Because of the Son
  • 58. Growing Up
  • 59. The Olive Leaf
  • 60. Until All Are One With Him
  • 61. Death Has Not Won, But Lost
  • 62. Call to Arms
  • 63. When All Is Done
  • 64. How Rarely Have I Come This Way
  • 65. At a Place So Very Different
  • 66. My Best Years Lie Ahead
  • 67. Sons of Zion, Jesus Calls You
  • 68. Come, Sing Your Song to Me
  • 69. May It Be Always So
  • 70. Until Safe in Heaven's Embrace
  • 71. Seek the Spirit
  • 72. Undertow
  • 73. If I Am Given Time
  • 74. Sons and Daughters, Heirs of Promise
  • 75. Wrestling for a Call
  • 76. When Everything is Ready
  • 77. One Thousand Times
  • 78. Tearful and Fearful I Prayed Through the Evening
  • 79. Tell Us, How Do Servants and Teachers Like You Come Along?
  • 80. Blessings for Beloved Servants
  • 81. Our Gayla's Free at Last
  • 82. I Am a Witness of Your Worth
  • 83. I'll Live With You Again
  • 84. Brother, Friend, and Fellow Servant
  • 85. Grieve Not for Him
  • 86. Press On From Payson's Hill
  • 87. The Righteous Live in Me
  • 88. Homecoming
  • 89. In Honor of My Friends Unseen
  • 90. [An Invitation] We Call to You
  • 91. Fellow Americans, Let Us Talk
  • 92. Brothers and Sisters, Fulfilled Together
  • 93. What We Have Lost in Our Digital Paradise
  • 94. Running Out of Time
  • 95. Ere You Hear the Sound of Battle
  • 96. 21st Century Gadiantons
  • 97 The Setting Apart
  • 98. What Do You Say?
  • 99. To a Woman of Tempered Steel
  • 100. A Correction Soon Begins
  • 101. The Quiet of the Morning
  • 102. Slippery Slope
  • 103. Stormy--We've Got to Stop Meeting Like This
  • 104. Warriors of the Mind and Soul [Poetic Process Discussion]
  • 105. He Wrote Just as He Lived
  • 106. Life Singer
  • 107. Zion's Daughter Leanore
  • 108. Does Your House of Worship Now Seem Lonely
  • 109. Crucify the "Old Man of Sin"
  • 110. We Loved Them Once
  • 111. Winter's Mothers God Holds Most Dear
  • 112. Lord, Please Forgive Us Anew
  • 113. Patriot's Faith Will Triumph Yet
  • 114. Indexing
  • 115. I Am Liberty
  • 116. The Beauty
  • 117. To Aid the Innocents Abused
  • 118. A Noble Bugler Has Returned
  • 119. The Music of the Lord
  • 120. Frog Cat
  • 121. God's Storms
  • 122. The Daughters of the Lord
  • 123. Come Back, Before Our Souls for Error Yearn
  • 124. Don't Tell Me That My Time Has Come
  • 125. From the Dust [Comes The Book of Mormon]
  • 126 To See the Sun Again
  • 127. Mourning America
  • 128. For Baby Adam
  • 129. Despedida Ansiosa/Anxious Farewell
  • 130. Between the Lines
  • 131. Will You Ever Ask the Questions
  • 132. The Days I Spent With You
  • 133. For Nelda
  • 134. The Covenant Path
  • 135. Heartland Dream
  • 136 We Sent Our Very Best
  • 137. Sisters of the Covenant, Daughters of God
  • 138 Sisters Share Their Cheerful Hearts
  • 139 God Looketh On the Heart
  • 140 What of Me?
  • 141 The Return
  • 142 Latter-day Defenders
  • 143. "Come and See, Come and Help, Come and Share"
  • 144. The Best of Father's Seed I've Known
  • 145. [Complete, but pending.]
  • 146. When the Days of Wait Are Over
  • 147. Red Kettles and Silver Bells
  • 148. Victory
  • 149. He Lacks Not Faith
  • 150. "Am I a Friend of Jesus?" [Spring 2020 Semi-Final Examination]
  • 151. Christ is Our Refuge Once Again
  • 152. Until We Kneel at Our Savior's Feet
  • 153. Where You Stand, You Should Still Lift
  • 154. No Day Shall Pass nor Night Shall Fall
  • 155. We Pray for You
  • 156. Bountiful Harvest
  • 157. A Message of Peace and Love
  • 158. Israel, Israel God Shall Save Thee
  • 159. For Those Who Wait
  • 160. Friends Who Intercede
  • 161. Young Women's "Frog Camp"

123.  "Come Back, Before Our Souls for Error Yearn"


The Trigger:

This is the fifth poem inspired by my rather distant, internet-forum relationship with 2 Medicine Woman.  [See: 104, 106, 116 and 121.]  I find that coincidence to transcend the "remarkable".  I remain bewildered in the extreme. 

She wrote on a preparedness bulletin board that a friend had offered her an all expenses paid vacation away from the "Great Minnesota Glacier".  It had been a record-breaking winter.  The actual destination was to be decided, but would be in some deep South coastal state and would involve "sun, sand, song, and much laughter".  Somewhat selfishly, however, her friends and family in Minnesota pleaded that she remain. 
"Cue light bulb over my head."  Thirty minutes later, the following was completed, and after some brief tweaks, was sent. 

The trip proved more than congenial, and as a consequence, she remarried, left Minnesota, and moved to the South!  And if my "poetic encouragement" contributed to her subsequent betrothal, Praise God!


123:  “Come Back, Before Our Souls for Error Yearn”
                     (Who cares for the caregivers?)

Chill winds blow, wet snow is falling.
We are huddled from the storm.
From the South, you hear a calling,
From a place both fair and warm.
“Let me leave you,” you entreat us,
“That I may re-fire my soul.”
But in selfishness, we answer,
“You are needed, please don't go.”

Fiercer still, the winds grow stronger,
Harsher still, fall ice and rain.
And you dare not linger longer,
While the offer still remains.
Yet we fear to lose your presence,
And we ask, “Can we survive?
If our source of virtue's presents,
Is not kept close to our side?”

But the Maker and the Master,
And the Source of all that's good,
Tell us you must leave us faster
Than our pride believes you should.
So “God speed you” in your travels,
Trusting that you shall return,
Before our feeble faith unravels,
And our souls for error yearn.


Job 5:6-7

"Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward."

Mosiah 3:19


"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

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AFTERWARD: 

I was bewildered by some of the language used:
a.     The phrase "source of virtue's presents" seemed vague--until the recipient wrote me a thank you message which included the following:  "
I am 2medicine woman. I was named thus in my tribe because I am a healer with 2 medicines: unconditional love and real truths--truths from my soul and those that went before."  Thus, she showed me how the virtues of love and truth produced or gave rise to a host of blessings, favorable consequences, or "presents" in the lives of those around her. 
b.  The phrase "souls for error yearn" was also perplexing--until I pondered how (a) "the natural man is an enemy to God" and (b) some people have a special gift of motivating/elevating/bringing out the best in us; despite our fractious natures.  We find ourselves attracted to such sources of order, stability, and comfort--even though they may possess no formal counseling training or psychiatric calling for their ministrations. Absent such role models, teachers, and friends, we are oft inclined to "error" and mischief of all kinds and of varying degrees of peril. 

Thus, I perceived that this poem had both "messages and lessons"--for the recipient, her intimate friends in Minnesota, and readers beyond the immediate scope of the piece.  In part, the theme of "caring for the care givers" was central to Number 38 and Numbers 41 through 45.  That theme is one of eternal dimension and celestial magnitude.  "We", the needy, who have come to depend upon the Lord's servants ("official" or otherwise) must allow them opportunities to "recharge" their batteries by leaving us from time to time.  "They", the servants, must take advantage of such  opportunities without delay or regret. 

As always, if there is anything herein of value or virtue, praise God--I'm just two hands on a keyboard.