My dear friend Erin is in town visiting this week.  We met a few years ago in Switzerland and she now lives in Florida.  Palm Beach and Portland aren’t easily accessible,  but the friendship exists via phone, emails, prayers, and making the effort to see one another.  Yesterday we realized we had seen each other five times since we parted ways in beautiful Switzerland in the Spring of 2008.

Erin is the type of friend who makes me want to be a better friend.  And if that wasn’t enough of a reason to keep her around, she has quite a few gifts as well.  This week I wanted to showcase just one of her many talents.  The assignment was for her to write a poem about relationships; this is what she created for me.  She is a gifted writer and thinker and I am privileged to have her in my presence.

Thank you, Erin.

*

Don’t you miss it.

Miss the beat of what she says—

his heart says wants does—

the human heart the size of a fist.

Make it: make a heart with your fist, squeeze it, make it pump.

Now imagine it: your fist is a crude recreation

of the scaffolding of her

filled with you, with them, all of it.

Picture it in her chest, grant her that.

Believe it, believe there are things

in the unseen

that are working toward the best

parts in each of you.

Move across that room after catching eyes

and forgive each other

again

and again

and again and again and again.

Erin Hobbie

This isn’t the first time Erin was part of my blog…she helped answer an Ask Joy.

The second time Erin was auditioning for the ground breaking new Christian Vampire flick. She’s going places people. Watch out.