POETRY ABOUT LIFE
by Bill Childers

 Table of Contents

Life
If I Could Change
I Wonder
If I Were
 

Life

If we have not the courage to try...
We don't have the right to be-
If we give not love from within...
We don't have the eyes to see!

If we have not the desire to understand...
We don't have the faith to forgive-
If we have not the integrity for living...
We don't have the wisdom to let-live!

Bill Childers
Copyright : 1991

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If I Could Change

If I could say what would He be like?
Would He be a mountain of a man?
Taller than anybody else, above all the heads,
Ready to intimidate all He can!

If I could say would I change Him?
Would I want Him to stand out in a crowd?
Always be the noisiest, the brassiest...
Expressing His feelings, clear and loud

If I could say about the day in the temple...
Would He throw more than tables?
Allow His anger to exceed quiet bounds...
Not be as logical...nor as stable!

If I could say about the garden scene...
Would I side with the sword-bearer?
Pleaded with Him to divide and conquer...
Be more a fighter, and less a 'cares'?

If I really could say who would change?
Would His changing be an escape for me?
There really is little doubt...'tis He should remain...
And I be different...for the world to see!

Bill Childers
Copyright : 1990

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I Wonder...

I look at the crooked plaques
And pictures on the wall.
And I wonder why they're there.

Oh, I recall when I got them,
Even 'why' in some case.
I wonder why I even care.

It would seem that if I cared,
They wouldn't be crooked
Or, at least, there wouldn't be dust.

There are the 'Praying Hands'
And, I think I recall 'who',
Remembering... I can, if I must!

And then the picture of the ship,
Three years of my like...
And a lot of miles and places.

I remember good friends I knew,
And a lot of people and years...
Very few names, mostly faces.

There's the bigger plaque beneath
The 'Hands', just as crooked,
But I can't forget its time!

Its value is twenty one years,
Twenty one now passed behind...
Will the next twenty one be as kind?

Bill Childers
Copyright : 2003

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If I Were

If I were as good as I would like to be,
And could accomplish feats of magnitude...
I would not stand tall as Him on that tree,
I could not walk where He stood!

If I were as patient as the whispering wind,
Yet, strong as the driving, battering gale-
In the slightest struggle I fear I would bend,
In the easiest battle I would fail!

If I were loving as a mother complete,
Yet, firm when there's no other way-
Too often with anger I would meet
The rebukes He met with love in a day.

If I were called to be as He was,
If I were left alone in death's game-
Could I know a sufficient cause,
Could I have borne His precious name?

Bill Childers
Copyright : April 12, 1992

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