Anamnesis

andesign101

NATE BERNEKING

No one ever wants to admit memory’s sharp edge That sense with age that I’m the only one left.

I can still see it all, and the young paying any attention, Grow incessant. What was it like? Who was with you? And, why?

Give us a story, an account, or testimony. As with Scripture, it doesn’t matter when every fact isn’t quite right

So long as it comforts those with the least need, who never ask Does it hurt? Surely they must know.

Bones and bodies cracking, forced back into lost places Re-membered. Members re-attached. Memory mysteriously embedded.

A memory so sacred, so severe, as to say of it This is my body. My blood.

New to publishing poetry, Nate Berneking works as both pastor and attorney for a large, mainline Christian denomination. Living in rural Missouri, his job requires him to spend much time traveling, including significant drives throughout the Midwest. That travel provides the opportunity to reflect on the people and landscape around him, and that’s when he finds the words to begin his poems. When he isn’t working, he spends warm months in his garden or tending several colonies of honey bees and colder months reading and writing. He has published one professional book and several articles related to his work for the Church.