Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Poetry Wednesday

Lately I've been finding some great poems!

Not by anyone "famous", but by ordinary people, just like you and me!

So, today I want to share one that meant so much to me when I first read it, and means more each time I review it.

Heartprints


By Steve Moore

Who kindly granted me permission to share


We leave our fingerprints on everything we touch. This is one sure way thieves and murderers can be identified. But it isn’t just the unique identity of our body that we cannot hide, for everything we are, revealed in our words and our silences, in our actions and our attitudes, in our tempers and our temperaments, comes out wherever we go, and rubs off on everyone we meet. Like footprints in new fallen snow, we leave heartprints wherever we go.

A beautiful prayer by an unknown author is quoted in the November 22, 2006 issue of Our Daily Bread.

Oh God, wherever I go today, help me leave heartprints of compassion, understanding and love, of kindness and genuine concern. May my heart touch a lonely neighbor or runaway daughter or anxious mother or aged grandfather. Send me out today to leave heartprints. And if someone should say, ‘I felt your touch,’ may it be Your love that touched them, through me. Amen.” Amen indeed!


It matters little where you are,

But oh, it matters much

To bring the essence of God’s presence

To everything you touch.


Every person is a pebble,

His world is a pond

The ripple effect will make a connect

Nearby and far beyond.


While walking in new fallen snow,

Wherever your path may wind,

The way you go all men will know

By the tracks you leave behind.


A man’s unique identity

Is easily revealed;

His fingerprint will give the hint

Of what was once concealed.


And every kindergarten child

All throughout the land

Learns to display in plaster clay

The print of his own hand.


The print of finger, foot or hand

Is how each does his part

To make his claim of simple fame –

But what about the heart?


Each time you walk into a room,

Whatever you do or say,

Your heart will spill for good or ill

On those who pass your way.


What will your heartprints say about

The person you’d like to be?

Fussing, complaining, on parades raining –

Is that what others will see?


Or will that room just brighten up

With light from heaven above,

As you bring a touch that means so much,

That feels like God’s own love?


Oh that this crazy world would,

From words and deeds so kind,

Be better since it sees the prints

Your heart has left behind!


From Heading Home, Essays and Poems Vol. II, Pp. 57-58. By Steve Moore.






2 comments:

Beth said...

Thank you for the reminder that we leave a bit of ourselves in everything that we touch. May we strive to be light in the darkness rather than contributors to it.

Kris Livovich said...

Heartprints. I like that. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I am affecting my childrens' hearts. Am I keeping order, and am I loving them? Lately it has been a struggle to do both.

Thanks for your email to Mike, Mom. You are encouraging and he could use it.
Love you.