07/02/2024
THE DEPARTURE
“Saying So Long to a Legend”
BACKSTORY
[28 years ago, Dr. Reaves asked me, HIS personal, presidentially proclaimed “Poet Laureate”, to pen a poem, and recite it at his farewell banquet. After 11 years as president of, and Point-man for, Oakwood College, he was leaving office, and the campus that had grown to love him. His request both honored and humbled me.
Upon hearing of his passing, I fondly and sadly recalled the awesome opportunity I had been afforded, and the august event I was blessed to attend. So, in honor of his life and legacy (with minor alterations to fit the current situation), I humbly submit that evening’s offering for your consideration, and our collective catharsis. This is dedicated to the Reaves Family, in all of its forms; may it bless and comfort you.]
INTRODUCTION
I was given the enviable, yet daunting task of rendering through verse, the history and impact of Our Dearly Departed. This has proven to be no easy, nor ordinary assignment; I’ve found myself in a bit of a quandary: “How could anyone possibly convey in brief moments, and few words, the legacy left by such a man as Dr. Benjamin F. Reaves?” I called upon the Creator, and with His infinite wisdom, and timeless tenderness, He directed me to the words of Kahlil Gibran in his inspired manuscript, “The Prophet”. The following is a collaboration, a meeting of the minds, an intertwining of the words and musings of Kahlil Gibran, The Holy Spirit, and A.E. Perkins
Now, to steal a phrase from our dearly departed, “Let’s get to the point.” This short story is entitled:
THE DEPARTURE
As Twilight, shedding her black velvet gown studded with ten thousand tiny sparkles, gave birth to yet another child named Dawn, he arose, as was his custom, and silently climbed the hill of his mind to commune with his maker. As he looked across the vast sea of time, he beheld his ship of mortality, far out on the horizon of tomorrow, coming through the mist. The gates of his heart were flung open, and his anticipation flew far over the sea…
Benjamin, the beloved, the chosen of God, the preacher, the teacher, the administrator, the minister, the man had labored as “Helmsman” over 10 years in the highlands of the Oak Glade, which was home to the School of the Prophets. And at the close of his Octogeneric years on earth, he beheld his ship , coming in the mist. As he descended the hill, a sadness came over him, and he thought In his heart:
“How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave the Land of the Living, which sits tentatively between the wall of yesterday and the doorway of tomorrow, on the precarious perch called Today.
Long were the days of ministry and pleasure I have spent within those walls, and long were the nights of pain; and who can depart from his pleasure, and his pain without regret? Too many fragments of my spirit have I scattered on yesterday’s floor, and too many are the family, and the friends, and the acquaintances that walk among the Living, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet from the hunger of knowledge, and thirst for perfection, that through my labor, God has satisfied.
Yet I cannot tarry longer. The abyss of death that call all things unto it, calls me, and I must embark. For to stay, though the sentiments burn in my heart, is to freeze and crystalize and be bound in a mould.
Fain I would take with me all that is here. But how shall I? A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether; alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun, and alone must I make this journey.”
Benjamin, the beloved, took up his treasures: the momentos, the memories, the emotions, and carefully laid them in the gold gilded trunk of his soul. He solemnly made his way to the harbor of tomorrow, where the ship of Zion sat waiting in her birth. The inhabitants of the Oak Glade, and those who had formally trod her hollowed grounds, tearfully came out to salute their departing champion. And with one spirit, the host of them cried.
And, after a time, Benjamin the Beloved spoke. “But what say ye? I am ready. Though at this moment, my spirit is wounded, it is not slain. I will tarry here for brief moments, as my bruised heart bleeds awhile, and with the dawn, and the sound of Gabriel’s trump, I shall get up, and never have to fight again! On battlefields distant, on satan’s terrestrial plain, I shall be free from persecution, and for my Savior, my praises shan’t wain.”
“Farewell, you inhabitants of the this Life; my time with you has ended. It is closing upon us even as the Morning-glory at the setting of the sun. What was given here we shall keep, and if it suffices not, then again we will come together and together stretch our hands unto the Giver of Life.
Forget not that I shall come back to you, if not in body, then in thought, or memory, or on the wings of prayer. Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. But now, our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The eventide is upon us, and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing me a deeper song.”
So saying, he boarded the ship, made a signal to the seamen, and straightway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved westward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose into the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting. And as their voices faded into the mist, and their tears were washed out to sea, a winged scribe put down his golden pen, and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. He again took up his golden writing instrument, turned the page of his book, and upon a clean sheet wrote…Benjamin F. Reaves…To Be Continued…
