friendship

For Faraway Friends – TCK Poems

For Faraway Friends is a collection of poems. All poems were written by Chana Noeth, and originally published on TCKsforChrist.com. Find out more about Chana and read more of the For Faraway Friends collection by clicking the link!

Letter to a Friend as I Leave

No tear runs down my cheek
As I give you a last embrace
As you stand and wave
My smile remains steady
My step is confident and sure
As I turn and walk away
Do not be fooled, my friend.
I’m not so emotionless as I seem.

As I give you a last embrace
I soak up what it feels like
As you stand and wave
I commit to memory your face
As I turn and walk away
I am hyper-aware of my surroundings.
I am pensive and sentimental
At our parting, my friend.

The air is slightly cool
But not enough to bring a chill
Your eyes are so bright and clear
The sight of them makes me smile
Your embrace is strong yet gentle
Infused with the warmth of your affection
And I’m amazed at how precious you are
Though my time here was short—
The things I’ll carry with me
The memories shared
That I’ll cherish forever.

It’s moist outside and I try to place it—
I’m not sure it’s quite drizzling
But it’s not considered a fog—
Even the not-rain can’t decide
But to lightly imply precipitation
Not really enough for an umbrella
But by the time I’ve walked far away
It’s enough to leave me wet
With reality: I’ll miss you.

And I’ll miss this street
And I’ll miss that tree
And I’ll miss that shop
And I’ll miss the church
And I’ll miss this weather
That can never decide
Whether it’s coming or going
Just like me: I hope I’ll return
But I don’t know if I ever will.
And just like you say of the weather,
It’s the spice of life.

And I wonder what you’re thinking
As I leave you
I wonder if you’re wishing
I would cry or show emotion
I’m pretty sure you’re thinking
You’ll miss me too
And I’m thinking
How much I used to hate it
When people would leave me.
I know the feeling all too well.

I’m remembering how I felt
When a friend came who I grew to love
Poured herself all in (just like I have)
Explored and tried new things—
It felt like I’d known her for ages
We talked about everything—
And then she was gone.
And she left with a smile on her face
No promise of return
(And I begged her to return).

(She never did.) Now I’m in her place
And I’m reliving that parting—
I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking
But I suspect I know
And that knowing makes this parting
Very poignant for me.
I’ve always been sentimental
But it’s hard to leave a place
When I know how it feels to be left
It’s harder to enter a place
And dive all in
When I know it might hurt you to love me.

Dear friend, I don’t know why
Life is filled with partings
But it is.
And that friend I met long ago
Taught me a lesson about loving wholly
So as much as it may hurt,
I think it’s worth it
And I hope you’ll understand
That if I never see you again
It’s not because I don’t love you.
I do.
And I’m so grateful I didn’t let fear hold me back
From loving you.
I think I finally understand how she felt
When she had to leave me.
Though I’ve not seen her since,
I learned much from her
And laughed and loved
Even as I have with you.

Labor of Love

A groan of anguish seeks to escape—
I barely contain it.
Why, why, WHY
Why does it feel so broken?

This was to be a joyful reunion,
A celebration of the fruit of many years—
Yet here is heartache in the happiness.

All those years of labor and love,
Learning, laughing, making mistakes,
Working hard, patiently longsuffering.

All those tears of frustration and fear,
Not knowing if the work would last another day
Drudging through bias and politics and sickness and war
(Both the seen and the unseen)

All those years
All those tears
And for what?

After pouring our lives into these people,
This project, this purpose,
We’ve come back to visit and we find
Such heaviness and hardship.

Was it in vain?
To be put in a box and shut away
As if it never happened?

Was it a waste?
All those years
All those tears—
Gone?

I said my goodbyes years ago
And tucked the memories into my heart
As mementos of my childhood,
My home, my friends.
I thought I said goodbye.

And then I came to visit.
All the memories, all the hopes and fears
And laughs and loves
All the good years
Came flooding back.

But now I must leave for good.
My heart is breaking again,
Worse this time because
This crack is on top of another
Not yet fully healed.

All those years
All those tears
And for what?
Would it have been better
To never come here?

I cherished this place as my home
I loved these people as my family
I embraced this culture as my own
And then I had to leave—
Oh, how ecstatic this return!

Every moment excitement and joy
Every interaction perfect
Like I’m home again!
But now it hits me.

I’m giving her my last hug—ever?
Will I never walk this street again?
Will I never eat fruit from that tree again?
Must I truly say goodbye
To this place I love?

Oh, the tears
Oh, the years
The pain of this loss is physical.

Why does it feel so broken?
Will it ever be okay?
And yet
There is grace through the turmoil.

Love and loss
Lament amid joy
Seeds to harvest
Unity amid division
Together and apart.

All those years
All those tears
Seeds were planted.
Bridges were built.
Love was grown.

Maybe it seems
Worthless
Useless
In vain
Or a waste
But no.
We serve a God who’s always working
Who’s bigger than space and time,
Injustice and poverty.

Our work was not in vain
Because the work was God’s.
These friends are not lost
Because they’re eternal family.
This people is not done
Because we’ll worship with them
In paradise.

All these years are in His hands
All these tears He holds in a bottle.
God is working,
Just wait and see.

Read more TCK poems about faraway friends here.

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Learning How To Stay – TCK Poem

If This Love Is Supposed To Be Permanent (I Don’t Know How)
Elizabeth Hemp

No one ever taught me how to stay
And you’re getting too close
If this love
Is supposed to be permanent
I don’t know how to do that
And I must confess
You’re scaring me
This close is too close because
What if you leave now
And my world is shattered
As I have always known it will one day be?
Too much power, too much trust, too much
Potential for hurt and no one
Has ever accused me of being an optimist

I don’t know how to stay
This point is farther than
I’ve ever gone before
And I don’t know what comes next
Except leaving
Leaving has always been the abrupt cut off
For all of my history
And I have always hated it but if I’m honest
I don’t know how else to do it
This is the point in the story
Where the ending is supposed to go
And it’s aching nervously
In my bones
I don’t like not knowing what comes next

So there’s no reason to leave
Except every reason in the world
We’re too close, I’m too scared,
You can’t understand this fear in my heart
Compelling me to leave you behind
Before it’s too late and I am the one being left
Again, like always…
Besides that, no one ever taught me
How to stay
And all I know is goodbye

Safety is in goodbye
Safety is in goodbye
Safety is maybe not worth it –
Do I dare to try
And stay?

Click here to read more poems by Elizabeth Hemp

By CulTuremiKs, ago

I Don’t Recognise Myself Anymore

The purity of the air after rainfall –
The sacred smell of sandalwood
Wafting down from the hilltop shrines
Reminds me of something.
My deadweight soul, flapping with airline tags,
Lies gasping, dusted with the residue of long years
Lettered ‘Fragile’ and ‘This Way Up’
Entreating those that handle it to be careful:
To see it safely on its way to wherever it’s going.
Coat-hangers strewn on the unmade bed,
The unwashed floor, the weary bags,
The cluttered tabletops
Which will perhaps retain traces of my having been here
When I am gone:
A few fingerprints maybe,
Scattered fibres from my clothes
Or crumbs of what I’ve eaten.
Otherwise I’ll be on my way
Like the breath in my lungs
And the black blood rushing from my hidden heart
And the voice of Winter groaning in the pipes
And the hissing gas of the stove
And all the unsaid words and murdered thoughts
Bleeding in the sink of my mind
Incognito down the street, keys clinking in my pocket
With the tumbling leaves and the frantic ghost of the city
To a new address.
And maybe I’ll see you again,
But we both know it won’t be the same.
I’ll twiddle my new keys and feel my chains
As though I’m my own jailer.
Because I don’t recognise myself anymore.

Author Unknown (if you have any information regarding the author please contact us using the form)

By CulTuremiKs, ago

You’re Invited, You Know

You’re Invited, You Know

Look, look at the rain pounding
into the dust outside, doesn’t it
sound like home? Like tin roofs
and shouting and laughter?

You would remember these
things, if you were here, and so
I say them to the empty space all around
me, to the memory of your presence.

We were made of different stuff, you and I.
I am stardust, never content with small and you
are the oak trees strong and steady, so
you know, I’ll visit you again someday
but I won’t stay. Will you forgive me for that?

Life is supposed to be built of love
but you and I have made it out of
minutes in the middle of years, out
of snapshot memories faded at the edges.

Look, look at this place and
how empty it is without you.
The world is big but our hearts are small
and you’re invited, you know. To come.

By Ghanaperu

Other poems by Ghanaperu
To My New Friends
Eve of Bittersweet

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Goodbye to Here

Another filled up, worn-out suitcase, another crossed off day—
Tomorrow I’ll again be going a million miles away.
I know someday I’ll return, but I know it won’t be the same
Because that’s just how it’s always worked in the traveler’s game:
Always moving; always settled; I don’t fit in; I belong—
Trying to blend in but always doing someone’s culture wrong.
I love the memories; I’m going to hold them close and dear. 
Farwell, the ticket says I’ve got to leave, so goodbye to here.

Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love.
Hello to familiar skies above.
Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend.
Hello to strange customs that are my friend.
I face it all with no and every fear.
Hello to over there; goodbye to here.

I go through the familiar airport procedures and routines
Until it’s my turn to get into that big flying machine.
As I take off, I watch everything below grow so small,
And I can’t believe that again I’m leaving behind it all.
Trying not to cry even though I’ve got memories to keep.
Trying to keep myself entertained and then just fall asleep.
Trying not to laugh as I get excited about what’s ahead.
Trying to trust that we follow where God has faithfully led.

Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love.
Hello to familiar skies above.
Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend.
Hello to strange customs that are my friend.
I face it all with no and every fear.
Hello to over there; goodbye to here.

I can’t imagine life for those who always live in one place,
Knowing what they’ll do each day and recognizing every face.
One mind, one tongue, one heart, one life, one home, one land where they live.
They say I sacrifice, but there’s more than what you see me give.
Maybe I can’t define home or use one speech to tell how I feel,
But I know I’ve come to love this world in a way much more real.
Someday maybe I’ll settle in a place most people call home,
But my heart still won’t understand why I can’t forever roam.

Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love.
Hello to familiar skies above.
Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend.
Hello to strange customs that are my friend.
I face it all with no and every fear.
Hello to over there; goodbye to here.

by Katrina P. Puckett

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Green Culture

Under country, over country,
Never committed and always free,
But that’s freedom by plane, 
And not freedom of pain.

That pain hides in the greetings that are filled with goodbyes,
Our hello is rather uninviting, we realize.
But it’s a result of a normal routine 
Of always having to leave as the in-between.

Our looks deceive – 
We are not who you believe. 
We know both more thank you think,
And less than you think.

Yellow in the sea of Blue,
In the sea of Yellow, we are Blue.
Holding the knowledge of a Green
We are mistaken as pretentious, as causing a scene.

We return home
To absorb the culture of home, 
But Painters admire each color alone, 
For Black absorbs all, yet has no culture of its own.

Yet there’s beauty in Green! 
It’s not a fault to be in-between. 
But Painters are stubborn, 
Holding the old standard of one, they just don’t learn

That Green is both – it’s two – 
Not yellow, not blue.
Is that not so simple? 
Yet it remains incomprehensible.

You may know us as Global Citizens;
We carry the global burdens.
The dark eye bags remain as battle scars of jet-lag, 
Telling of the loss and grief from flag to flag.

Some of us live on the prayer cards on your fridge,
Between you and the 3rd world, we’re the bridge.
Existing as the good of the world in your sight, 
It is a fallacy we must rewrite.

If we didn’t bring our Sunday’s best
To visit your church to impress,
Perhaps you would be disillusioned, and the truth be known 
Of the dirt we bear, of the sin we own.

The truth is that we are scruffy
With the odor of our homes stuck to our shirts, a smell that is friendly,
Familiar because it is foreign,
Foreign to any other person.

If our real closet was opened, it would burst.
Culottes falling first, 
Hand-me-downs intertwined, 
Revealing our fashion – only 10 years behind!

The skin of a chameleon
Has granted us the chance of one in a million
To adapt, give, and share all before noon,
And before we’re gone, for our goodbyes come all too soon.

by Rachel Hudson

By CulTuremiKs, ago

In Nepal / So Hum

Caught his eye
Walking in the mid day heat
In Bhaktapur.

Faraway – – look

Both of us a little like strangers,
Though he was born here
In his dusty gem encased by mountains
Cradled in the mist

He’d since
Seen the sea in Spain
& there gaining a new life
Lost some of the old

the cold mornings when he’d run laps around the pokhari with the other boys. One was always fastest – ran two times around before he could finish one.

We sit at its side now, smoking our cigarettes,
& I can’t tell how he feels
when he says that the children playing in the streets
Are foreign to him now.

by Aoife Higgins

By CulTuremiKs, ago