Publisher's Synopsis
These poems are part of a collection written by Nancy Martin Ivey, mostly in 1968 and in 1971, around the time of the birth of our fourth child, our first born in Alaska. Nancy began writing poetry in high school. I recall one particular poem of hers that compared our time with God's time: (paraphrased) "And then one day when our bodies die, we'll find our lives have been a blink of His eye." Nancy was enthralled by beauty, particularly that of Alaska; nature; and music, especially that of our four sons. She was very disturbed by racial prejudice and greatly grieved for Martin Luther King, Jr., when he was assassinated. Her poems about our romance and courting are very hard for me to read; the two best of these end this book. She was inspired by her great love for Jesus, her five children, her grandchildren, her passionate love of Alaska and its raw beauty, our give-give relationship, her very major activities in the United Protestant Church in Palmer and in Women's Aglow Fellowship there, and her empathy and compassion for others. She also drew from our Alaskan life and family activities. We joined in the atmosphere of last frontier, living largely on moose, salmon, the vegetables we grew, and on the berries we picked. I learned to fly; she loved to go up with me. Nancy practically swooned in hearing our sons sing, and she took two of them to Anchorage Youth Symphony regularly. She also traveled there for our second son's piano lessons. I used to kid Nancy and tell her she was the greatest woman who ever lived except for my heroine, Joan of Arc. As you will see in "The Father and Joan," with which I begin this booklet, I fantasized that Nancy was her reincarnation. I do not believe in such, but I do not know why God might not have done it one time. "Alone," "Our Being," "When 'me' turns to 'we, '" "One," and "Shall We All Fall Down" all speak of our love and oneness, and the fifth of these reflects her sympathy with me and my fear that the whole world might be paved. The poem, "Lifted," apparently refers to God. "For Our Bread," "Wisconsin," and "Aurora" reflect her love for the beauty of nature. (Aurora, "Rori," daughter of Sam and Eowyn of Alaska, is the only grandchild, other than her second great grandchild, Miles, is the only grandchild she never saw.) "From the Valley," "Just a Snow 'Flittery' Day," "Old Timer," and "Praise God for His Shepherds," are poems about the beauty of Alaska that I can imagine her writing while looking out the window of our home. "Old Timer" and "Praise God for His Shepherds" were written with the Reverend Frank Walkup in mind. Frank served a church in Anchorage for a time, then went to Clermont, Florida, as the pastor of the church Nancy and I attended there. He was a long-time man of God. With "Love," "Good Night, Little Love," "Dan," and "Christy," she sang twice of our daughter, then of our youngest son, and finally of our oldest grandchild, her "present." In "For All my Babes" she muses about all of them. "A Mother's Reflection tells us of what she thought it would be like if one of her sons went to war. "Pain," "Peace," and "Free" presage the misery she was to experience many years later, and the final two poems are the hardest of all for me to read, reflecting as they do our dating and, later, our early marriage.
