A Stretch for Me

Cuban Tree Frog

It's a beans and rice kind of week, and maybe if were good we'll get Ramen
And as I pull up to the 7-11, there's a lady with an outstretched hand
She's holding on to a bucket as the kids from the band wash cars
She asks me for a donation, and I show her my empty hands
Sorry, I have no cash on me, and this is being true to a copper
Its the weeks that we pay the bills and my kids complain that they're paupers
But as I open the door to the store, she tells me, "make sure you bring some cash out"
Did she really just say that? and Drew says, "yep she said it, no doubt"
Wow!

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

The Path I Thought

Moss and Oak leaves

Where you fell or were planted, but here it is you have thrived
In a place where others could just barely stay alive
But most of them have died
Your beauty runs too deep, past the point of unaided eyes
In mossy places, hard to get to, your glory does reside
That I traveled down the wood path, and then wandered off its course
I could not find my way to it, but found a better in my remorse

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Leftover Blue Jay

Millepede in Moss on a palm

Read More

Giants, So Small You Can't See Them

I don't see how being small is anything less than feeding everything that would starve without you
And so as small as I am and as many of me as there are, what is it that you do
But as I laugh at your deluded, locomotive, contemplation
Something  smaller than myself keeps me from my own starvation

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

This Problem of Evil

So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up to them, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." John 8:7 NKJV

Place yourself, see yourself, next to the man you regard the least

Take yourself, a step past him and one step closer to the beast

Stare back at the man, in which you see the darkest soul

Take one more step, your closer now, to the bottom of the hole

Now your past the place you thought to be the furthest from His grace

And looking round you realize, that this is your old place

That darkest soul you thought to be is now knocking at your door

So show the place, where you found grace, not so long before

For its not for you or I to say that this one has gone too far

There is this certain problem of evil, and that is, that no one thinks they are

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

Being Popular

 It wasn't for the lack of scales, or eating things that make my stomach turn

Those barbs that pierce through careless skin, and later start to burn

Its not for these we can't be friends, for I love the whiskered smile

But on the stoves a pot of grits, and your meat taste sweet and mild

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

Home Work vs. Corn Snakes

Always asking if she can pick it up, ever looking for the next big find
Persistent in what she wants, and if her heart is so inclined
Home work and chores, they don't seem to catch her eye
But has not met the creature, she would let go slithering by
Focus, I keep telling her, but apparently she has
There's a corn snake outside the window and she's staring through the glass

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

Mothers

Honor thy father and thy mother

Who is my mother? She is the woman that gave birth to me, but that in itself would not be so noble an act, since it is common to all  women who reproduce. My mother was a sinner, frail and hurt by her own mom. She was born to a mother that had a very limited capacity to love. She was abused, and still sought the approval of the abuser, still desired her to behave as a mom. My mom did not receive unconditional love, the way we esteem the love we say that only a mother could have. She lived in the shadow of a very violent storm of a woman, proud, arrogant and cruel. It is a volatile place, a place of no rest and never knowing what will set off the next storm, you shrink. 

I was born to a mother, who was not perfect, and who had no example in her own mother. She was abused, but never abused me. She was neglected, but always there for us. She forgave her own mother and as she learned the truths of God, she shared them with her children. It took me some time to forgive my grandmother, and she had already been laid to rest, but I took a path towards self destruction and arrogance for many years after. I am most grateful to my mother for giving me a Bible, telling me about God, and though I left angry, always letting me return. It was in God's word that I found myself with no one to blame and in those pages I found myself  guilty of the evil I disdained in others. Its mother's day, and to all you single moms out there, God bless you, its not easy but it is a high calling. Thanks Mom

Calvin

Read More

Lost... Again

It's beautiful, but we're lost, and soon the falling sun will hide the trail
There's no opening here and no safe place to rest

The brush is thick and though I'm looking for things with scales
I do not want to be found, to see them first is best

And as the sun slips further down I see the place we need to be
So through sharp thorns from black berries I carry Scale Lily

With no flashlights and blackness coming, I question my delay
Just one more trail, and one more bend, its what I always say

But now no trail and chewed up legs, and listening to the brush
No rattle yet, no smell of musk, all is but a hush

And then my feet on sugar sand, so good to see my feet again
I set Scale down, and said, "see there, it worked just like I planned"

"Sure, dad"

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

One of those days where you wait too long and end up fighting the dark. Over and over again you say to yourself, "I should't have stayed here so long, and I shouldn't have stayed so long with a child." Then over and over again you quote to yourself:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me…

The 23rd Psalm, and it calms you and then later you look back and realize that if you maid better choices you would never be so dramatic. It's good to see your feet, and if you can help it, it is better not to race the sun, especially in the mountains. When I lived in the Appalachians I had my closest encounter to getting bit, and that was by a copperhead, because I was unprepared and couldn't see the path. It gets black out there and the sun disappears quickly behind the mountains, and you would think I would learn but I dare not think how many times I have been lost. Now that I have children I try to be more careful, especially when I am with them. It was not a close call this time, but it was a reminder. 

Read More

Carry Me

There is a smile you have when someone loves you
And its not because you've been or done your best

Not since you run faster, or that there is no one stronger
And not because your smarter than the rest

You didn't win a race, and your will was not imposed
You even tested boundaries, to see what love could hold

But there was nothing you could do that had not been done already
Love has been rejected and love has felt the cold

And this love I have for you is better than my own
It comes from wells much deeper than nature could contain

Its humble and unassuming, it does not leave the heart alone
And it has never sacrificed the truth for superficial gain

So when I tell you that your wrong or there's room here to improve
My love has not forgotten you, it cannot help but care

And though you press to prove me wrong in this
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to big for love to bare

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

Nothing

It is in those moments with those, who can never pay you back
Those that bare teeth, and snarl at your approach
That you can be like Him, and cut the chains away
An act above reproach

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

Lofty Places

None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.  - Charles Spurgeon

God help me today, to start anew, in the humility and love of one who did not make and could not save himself.

Read More

Resurrection Song

So wide awake, no meta me
But why was that so easy
To in disdain of root
And firmly planted seed
Despise the truth of Word
The very thing I need
To be lost in a detail
A theology so frail
It sounded good because
I found nothing good in me
Forgetting Who You were in this
I left You on the tree
But now on bended knee
Forgive, a mind that led me wrong
A superstitious, gnostic thought
I held for way too long
And help me learn the words to sing
The Resurrection song

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Water Lily

Read More

I see You now, but I will see You then

Focus on the fade, on the clouded eye of my borrowed frame
And the words that I proclaim, as one that is not ashamed
And though I see you for now this way, through atmospheres of gray
One day just like the morning after you have stolen me away
Like standing on the edge of what I now behold afar
No looking from the distance, I see just Who You are

That light was never quite the same, nor clarity as profound
As the morning I lay eyes on you, then pressed my face into the ground
But darkness there I did not find and fear was burned away
And like a child once again, I knew that you would stay

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Read More

A Promise

Scale Lily

Promises, Promises, words but no reward

I told her a long, long time ago I would

But time gave way to  procrastination

And the words stopped sounding like they should

When I father says, I will

It is expected the child

The letters put away

Not forgotten, but just filed

But five years had long since past

When she opened up the drawer

And handed back my words to me

She did not believe them anymore

So I stopped what I was doing

And held the paper in my palm

My priorities now shifted

Welcome, to Scalelily.com

Calvin "Cheese Grits" Yerke

Adventure Lily

Read More