A Cloud of Witnesses

That one sweet Day of Rest when my mother and I explored  

Her parents’ big heirloom Bible,

We had no idea what we would find,

Except God’s Words in German,

Gothic “S’s” like swords stabbing with Shakespearean flair,

Pages brittle with age. 

The first few stories of Genesis lay only half-told, pages rippled away like sand.   

There was no “in the beginning,” 

No record of heaven’s birth,

No registry of family deaths below. 

Tenderly, we searched on.  I enjoyed voicing some of the guttural sounds

Of our mother tongue. 

Soon we were pulling hair from Leviticus

And calico fabric from Psalms. 

The eulogy for President Garfield’s untimely death rested among Good News.

Peacock feathers, tintypes, Woodrow Wilson promising World Peace—

Bank notes, debts owed, “Please pay the bearer of this note three dollars,”

Inky names of ghostly figures we had but dimly heard,

Stranger and stranger, the riveting quest became—

A tiny floral decal, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” 

Beautiful letters by a cryptic pen, “Dear Sister, I take my pen in hand this evening

To let you know that we are all well.  For since I heard from you last,

I have been near death’s door.”  Then later,  

“They both passed away in faith.” 

Calligraphic letters quoting a fragment of a Brethren hymn sung at the crossing—

The flair of centuries-old ink granting dignity to severest pain—

“And when to Jordan’s floods we are come, we are come,

And when to Jordan’s floods we are come, we are come,

Jehovah rules the tide and the waters He’ll divide,

And the ransom’d host shall shout, ‘We are come!’”

Thus, the sweet bravery of agonized fates reads like verses added to the Sacred Record,

“Dear Sister, I have been very sick. 

I am a little better now but not well and never will be anymore. 

He said it was a fibrous tumor. 

It cannot be cured, but I thank my God that I do not fear death.

Could I only go home to rest--

I will freely bid this world adieu to see my heavenly home.

I have had nothing but sorrow and trouble all my days.  I have almost overcome.”

Loose old German pages of a smaller Bible

Smelling of wood smoke and stained with oil,

Little German notes the size of name cards with flashes of favorite verses or songs,

Tiny pages from an ancient hymnal, “Backslider returning”—thoughts tucked away for

Me to find, lest I be weary and faint in my mind—  

Age spots like freckled moments grown into centuries.

A colored Sunday school card depicting Ruth, “Thy people shall be my people,

And thy God my God.” 

Between the Apocrypha and Matthew, we found the family record,

Beginning 1821, the Bible itself dated 1805. 

Crossing the Atlantic, landing in Maryland,

Later in Michigan, Florida, North Carolina,

Tennessee—resisting treachery and thievery,

Heirloom of a sparse estate,

Bypassed by thugs ravaging my parents’ home,

This two-hundred-year-old German Bible not returning void

Expands with the years, resting so silently on my coffee table—

Ancestors being dead yet speak. 

This is my heritage and my hope.

My mother has joined them now,

Margaret Eleanor Shue Warner,

The great-great granddaughter of Catherine Leahy,

Whose family DNA lay tucked in German Holy Writ.

--CJW--