Worth Revisiting: A Grandfather’s Legacy

Today I share a granddaughter’s revisiting of the legacy of a poet, not by trade but by heart. A teacher, farmer, surveyor, and cotton gin manager, Carl Wyatt Ferrell wore many hats in order to best provide for his family.  And still always the student he looked at life each day anew, finding God not in grand gestures but in the small everyday details of life. His love of poetry captures this awareness and is the treasure left to me by my grandfather a lifetime ago.

Dawn on the River

I stand at dawn above the stream
As skies begin to glow,
Like stirrings from a drowsy dream
I sense the river’s flow.

My face is fanned by morning breeze,
That stirs the trees so tall.
The squirrels chatter in the trees
While nuts begin to fall.

Now birds begin their morning song;
The dewdrops from the leaves;
The fog-bound river flows along
between the Cypress trees.

First signs of sunrise now appear-
the east is bright with gold.
The veiling fog begins to clear-
Earth’s beauties now unfold.

Below I see the shining stream,
this clear swift path of light.
The sunlight’s golden gleam
has took the place of night.

By Carl Wyatt Ferrell