The Parkersburg Poems

Parkersburg, Iowa is a tight knit community in eastern Iowa known for its small-town pride and legendary high school football teams. The town has one stop light, one gas station, and one grocery store. In many ways it resembles any other town its size but in two significant ways it is different.

On the afternoon of Sunday, May 25, 2008 the town was destroyed – leveled - by a massive EF-5 tornado.

And on the morning of June 24, 2009 – a Tuesday morning – the high school football coach, town patriarch, NFL high school coach of the year, and elder in my church was shot and killed in the high school weight room. He was shot in the head four times by the son of a deacon in my church. In front of 35 high school students.

And I was their pastor.

These collected poems were written during that time. Most of them in a small room in the church basement where I, a young and introverted first-time pastor, started most days in silence and prayer.

I no longer live in Parkersburg. And I am no longer a pastor. However, those hard days and dear people and heavy grief cast a long shadow yet. These poems are not triumphant tributes. They are not easy. But they are honest and as such honestly trace the wandering path of a young pastor trying to find his way through. Looking for a light in the darkness. Waiting for signs of hope in the midst of despair.