5/27/2022

The rocky shores of Maine are part of me

Or am I really part of the wave beaten shore

Does my heart beat in time with the waves

Or the crashing thunder of the rocky shore

Is my life widened by the Promenade view

With the width and depth of the Atlantic

Or narrowed by Portland streets like Alder

With a life of poverty making a soul sick

A biological father who left to not return

Not knowing if not wanted or uncaring

What part does this betrayal fit in me

How harmful was this betrayal bearing

Caroline my sister dies of pneumonia

So young, her life was hardly begun

Preston my brother entered life dead

His tiny life before beginning is done

Dad from West Virginia comes to our aide

Marries my Mom and chooses me as son

Later to West Virginia this Mainer does go

A new chapter of my life has now begun

Do not feel I belong to either family

I am not either a Preston or Ramsey

Lost and alone even with a family

Not Preston, Keene or even Ramsey

Alcohol dulls the emptiness and pain

But in the end harms more than gain

Destroyed and dying from my stain

Used to help but multiplies the pain

With three months to live I do not care

In dying me to live do not hope to dare

To hell I go with all the chains I wear

Blood attacks and pain I cannot bear

In West Virginia woman takes to pray

I know God will not hear as they pray

“Do you have faith as for you we pray”

No I said “We have faith for you to pray”

Healing begins as my pain goes away

I kneel and pray my stain goes away

So much hurt and pain does roll away

Fear and loneliness God takes away

Maine or West Virginia not my home

And now Heaven do I call my home

For any place can never really be home

To see the face of Jesus will be my home

God has given the gift of a real family

His body of believers form my family

With Bonnie we create a new family

As Perkins and Ramsey create family

Told unable to ever able to be a father

With Bonnie three Children am father

Sarah, Jonathan and Rebecca am father

And Levi Bennett with Sarah am father

Better father to children could have been

A much better husband I should have been

Past no excuse for what I have not been

Ask forgiveness for what I have been

After 32 years as pastor become disabled

Lost my congregation because disabled

God calls to serve even though disabled

Find God’s great strength being disabled