Saving Daylight

I caught sight of it as I passed the window yesterday
down the driveway thick with mud and gathered puddles
Three birds in silhouette
the afternoon sun flooding them from behind
taking a bath

My lips curled skyward
and I stood motionless
for five whole minutes
Because
the audacity

The day before that
you pretended to be Huck playing in the bulrushes
and you brought me handfuls of cat tail fluff
my palms opened to the offering
and you glowed

The dark earth, moist with thaw
has begun its heaving heavenward
pushed from below
until, split open like the body
it becomes broken

Then, today
I turned that last corner out of the woods
and came up on the lake
glimmering with a thousand
salvos of light

And I'm clutching all of it
with an unbecoming fierceness
hell bent on gathering glory
as if it wasn't raining
right round

Running hard after love

I've wanted to escape to this space for weeks now. To get lost in that suspended place of word and thought that swirls like so much wood smoke, evoking both memory and revery with each bend and jump. Here is where I come to figure out what really is ... to remind myself of the ground that holds me up and the sky that pulls at my chin. It is here that I remember how to breathe.

But I have been living the last two weeks at my parents' house and despite the fact that I have all but completely withdrawn from my regular life, the days have been fuller, stuffier, heavier than most. My mom is in the thick of chemotherapy treatments attempting, with all that science and positive energy can offer, to fight a disease that alters the makeup of her blood. Rather than work for her, her cells have declared anarchy. And she is tired.

We are all tired.

And although we may be chipped and cracked a bit, dizzy drunk from all that is working around and in and through us, we are not defeated. Nor have we lost hope. Never before have I been more in tune with the song of the Gospel that sings over me, every day. That although we walk a tenuous line between faith and fear and every step seeks to hand us over to death, life is rising in us, as well.

I witnessed this truth laced through every.single.day I spent at my parents' house.

I didn't always see it while I was a child in their house. I was too busy living wildly off of the fruits of their diligence and gracious caretaking then. It has only been since returning as an adult, in a strange juxtaposition of caregiver and care receiver, that my eyes have been opened. It is only now, when the days seemed numbered, that I see the ring of light that circles the dark.

+++++++

My parents do everything with care. My mom keeps a very tidy house and my dad keeps the whole machine running smoothly. Such has been their dance throughout 59 years of marriage and they still do it beautifully. The glorious thing about it all, however, is that it never was, nor ever is, at the expense of hospitality or graceful living. Neither of them has ever answered the door to surprise guests only to exclaim, "Forgive the messy house!" Instead, doors were thrown open, arms were outstretched and visitors were ushered in with squeals of delight.

My parents are curators of a welcome life.

You can imagine the difficulty, then, when illness enters the room and, despite a willing heart, the body can't always comply. The tenuous line is drawn and its diaphanous form etches itself across the floor, like a crack in plaster.

But, over and over, I watched my parents, my mother, especially, tilt towards life.

+++++++

I always thought that if I was ever faced with a severe illness that I would, of course, take up arms and run into battle. I would not go down with the ship. I would rise above, stand defiant, go out kicking and screaming.

After witnessing the horrors of chemotherapy, however, I'm not so sure. The idea of fighting death with destruction doesn't settle well in my deepest places. But neither does quietly walking away from a life that I love. I don't know how to keep company with those who sing songs for Jesus' speedy return in order to save us from this swirling orb of humanity.

I want to live.

I want to wake up every day and gaze upon those that I love. I want to plant zinnias every summer and smell wood smoke trailing from stone chimneys. I want to eat gooey butter cake and lift weights at the Y and take road trips to the Rocky Mountains and cook bacon on Saturdays. I want to laugh at silly jokes and hear, once again, the stories that make our family its own brand of crazy. I want to hold fast to the hands clinging hard to mine.

I don't want any of this to ever stop.

I'm learning that the way to embrace a death sentence while simultaneously allowing life to rise in me is to run hard after love. In all circumstances, by every means necessary, even when I screw things up or do the exact right thing--I need love to be what is standing between me and everyone else.

When love is what I choose to weave in among the fibers and snags of my every day life, when love gilds the edges of tired joy or stretches across the chasms of unspoken fears then that cloudy glass is rubbed a little cleaner. Love lived on purpose breathes life and one can catch glimpses of glory come down.

I saw it most keenly the night I lay in bed alongside my mom. She was three days into chemo and every one of her body systems was in revolt. In that darkened room I quietly held hands with my mom and hung lavishly in that place of holding and being held. Our bodies formed a circle and I longed harder than ever that it remain unbroken. And then she whispered her thanksgiving, for me and my boys and my just being there. Her words, her naming the gifts, breathed life into my weary soul. It was love that floated between our souls in that moment and it became clearer than ever.

This speaking love into each others' lives? It is life.

The Calling

I whisper to you as the water runs down
in rivulets
over my belly
flowing from above
spreading out
like a river delta

and it is true
there is a rich deposit
just below the surface
left days and weeks before
by love's flow

But I long for you
sweet one
I want to know you in the flesh
not just as a rising and swelling
like the ocean's tide
But by your ruddy wrappings
and
your holler

I want to put my nose to your head
the one that still carries the scent of heaven
and hang
transfixed
by the cord that binds us all
to the other side

I want you
little one
full up with love
and need
and joy unbound

For your crossing over
will usher in new landscapes
and I've opened up the window
with the morning sun
hoping to catch a glimpse of you

+++++++++++++
Picture credit: Aidan Grantham
Bracelets: the blue beaded one was made by Aidan and the brown beaded one is from ViBella Jewelry, gifted to me by Kelli at the Jumping Tandem Retreat last April.

{Still Saturday}

There are times

when the strings

are

invisible

And what I feel

is

ensnared

But

the

Truth?

Is that

I am

swinging

in an

act of

suspended

trust

And

just now

the Sun is peeking

round the clouds

And I explode

into

slivers

of 

light

Adagio: Vernal Light

So much time passes, so much of life happens

but all along

our hearts have been gathering. 

Words.

Because we can't help but gaze and wonder, pause and reflect, garner and store ...

And then, in the appropriate passage of supernaturally appointed time, we come together, each of us with hearts and souls bursting.

And we craft poetry from the overflow of our lives.

Adagio: A Poetry Project is a collaboration between Elizabeth Marshall and myself. Born from our love of word dances and the lyrical that infuses the world, we came together to weave words. We continue to partner, to write poems, to spill pictures and to, hopefully spin beauty. 

For this installment, Elizabeth and I desired a photo prompt. We chose to use a beautiful photo from the work of Kelly Sauer, who uses her camera "to make art out of life." Kelly also blogs at La joie, La vie. All that she touches radiates beauty.

Vernal Light

Hope hangs her head, long and low
Prays for light to pierce the dark
days
buried in the blur of time, gathers
pearls, drops of faith cling
to ray on ray of radiant
Hope, bows to birth
love has found her way

Vernal light glimmers golden on
pearled edges
as days lengthen and clocks spin
and the wisps of honey covered
minutes
blow airy and light
billowing curtains and hearts
alike

We cannot see frail and broken
made of bone and flesh
we  still hold to doubt and fear
but tender is the soul infused with hope
for it
holds new mercy rising on the orange blaze, promises
to take us with her
as she dreams

There are shadows, still
but brighter is that which
slants across her face
than that which seeks to rule the world
When there are only dark days
piled one upon the other

That is the promise of the
bloom
an emerging efforescence
that causes hands to lift
and eyes to shine
while their glint burns bright
upon the field

Look for signs of tender hope
when wrinkled lines curl gentle on the edge
of lip and eye, blue no more
the bird has made her
nest of
new
fragile eggs
laid in trust
hold gentle as you breathe out dread
and winter’s gloom is carried off
light breaks open
claiming hearts and souls again

+++++++++++

Elizabeth and I are grateful, too, for Lisa Leonard at Lisa Leonard Designs whose jewelry is shown here on the model’s neckline.  The photograph used in Vernal Light was selected  from  a collaboration between Lisa Leonard and Kelly Sauer. Again, thank you Kelly for generously allowing us to partner with you. You can find more of Kelly’s work at Kelly Sauer.  And you can follow her blog and her art through words at Joie de Vivre.

A foretaste

Your words

they speak

of counting hairs

and

grains of sand

And so

 it must be 

that 

You have touched 

each

and

every

golden orb

with

Light

And now

each

swells

with 

a

foretaste

of

Glory

divine

How the light falls

The darkness and the light are wrapped together like twine
these midwinter days
The sun
it walks with a crook in its back
and it sheds its rays
                               at
                                   a
                                      slant

I walk around the house
switching on lamps
I need the light to spill over
onto chairs and floorboards
otherwise
I keep stumbling

It is cold now
most of the time
and I've been wearing
the same wool socks
for days on end
I know I should wash them
start fresh
but they
are
just
so
warm

That is what it is like
these last days
of the year

Old dancing with new
reminiscing wrapped in foretelling

I think
that I will just
keep going around
switching on lamps

For
whatever I do
I can see
more clearly
in
the
light

Noel {A Haiku}

Inspired today by the thoughts of Seth Haines over at Tweetspeak Poetry. The structure of certain poetry  forms can provide just the right space in which to share raw and ragged emotion. Here, I fall into the haiku and I am grateful for its conciseness. It hems me in--in just the right places.

+++++++++++++++++++++

When there is silence
my ears are tilted upwards
catching the holy

Into my empty
there falls a swelling presence
that keeps me breathing

For these days are stretched
across my breaking heart space
and I need comfort

But haven't I always?
every Noel finds me poor
in mind and spirit

This one only rips
closer to the quick, the root
from which life is born

The idea of God
as a child burns deep and wide
it is at once, mad

And beautiful, because
it is the heart of the young
from which springs glory

And in the inky
black sky a crop of new stars
sing Hallelujah

O come, o come, now
usher in sweet songs of joy
be born in me again.

On the darkest night

On

the darkest night

when

greedy arms

encroach

and

spread

wider, thicker, stronger

than

I

there is yet 

a

light

and

it

burns

on

always

{Adagio: A Poetry Project} Born in the Night

Today I give you a second offering of Adagio: A Poetry Project. Perhaps you saw the first poem? The one where Elizabeth Marshall and I each strung words on colored threads and then wove them together into one unified piece. That idea, of writing collaboratively, was what initially launched this project and it is the heart and soul of how we see this project growing.
But just as its name suggests, an Adagio is a dance between two partners. A dance in which there is a lifting, a balancing, a turning. So, today, we are dancing as individuals to the same music. There is a poem from me, here, and another poem from Elizabeth over at her place. Together and apart, we are writing from the same prompt, the hymn "Born in the Night, Mary's Child."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is night when you come

We have not made it to a place that makes sense

a place proper 

a place right

But still 

you come

First

there is darkness

so

much

darkness

But then

you burst forth

pulling on skin and bone and sinew

and the light

it 

drips

molten

from your face

You

who at once

knows nothing

and

everything

You

are the one

that will tell us

that

God is good

even while

all around you

that early darkness

swirls

black

Hope

grips at your heels

a streamer

dancing and flapping

on the wind

and it

leaves

kingdom dust 

on the streets

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Writing is, most often, a solo venture, a process worked deep inside the confines of one’s heart and soul. But when two pilgrim poets turn towards each other and embrace the tension that lies between, something new emerges.  A writing “pas de deux” is born and the two begin weaving their words together, in and around, over and under, into something bigger than themselves. The writing becomes a lifting, a balancing, a turning…and the words on the page become an Adagio.

We would love for you to enter into this project with us. Please feel free to leave your own poem in the comments, either here or at Elizabeth's place. We welcome your choreography on this endeavor and we long to hear your offerings on the prompt.

The space that remains

I have been so very quiet this week.

I was not prepared for how my heart would fold in upon itself after it had spread itself so wide open. It was the writing of My Broken Hallelujah piece that did it. After slowly and carefully pulling together the words to share that story I found myself needing to sit in the hushed space that remained.

For when one reaches deep into the vulnerable places, its as if a thread comes loose, dangling and exposed at the edge of the soul's fabric. And with each passing moment, that thread shakes in the wake of waters churned and is pulled a little further out of its seam.

And there is a slow unraveling.

So this week has been spent gathering up the gold colored filament that hems in my heart.
And slowly and with great measure,
I have wound
round
and
round.

And now Christmas is coming.

Oh how I wish to be caught up in that story again. The one that I never tire of hearing. The one that, despite knowing it backwards and forwards, never fails to alight on my heart space anew.

The one in which, once again, a baby's birth changes my world.

O come, o come Emmanuel.

Eucharisteo

This is a repost from last year but it remains the prayer of my heart.

As we pack up the car and drive over the river and through the woods 

to family and all those we hold dear, 

I pray that these words would sink deep.

And I hope that wherever you find yourself this Thanksgiving

you will be full to bursting with love unending.

“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.” 

-Ann Voskamp

Lord,

Despite the fact that I can feel the dance begin,

the one that sweeps up family and feasting, bustling hands and beauteous light and twirls them round and round my heart,

I sense You pulling me deeper.

Yes, it is good to gather, to greet each other with holy kisses and to give thanks.  Generations after generations have taught us that ritual.  We know it by heart.

But Lord, I long to live out my thanks giving.  I don’t want it to be reserved for pre-appointed dates on the calendar.

I need to practice this act of thanks giving so that it becomes a sacrament. 

Because on many days, the thanks are slow in coming.

And some days, they don’t come at all.

How can this be?

Perhaps it is because my wandering heart finds your shadow and declares you absent, choosing to embrace emptiness and despair.  Looking closer I might see that the darkness that puddles around me is actually cast by the breadth of your wing.  And that you are always passing by.

I must burn the Truth on my lips--that your mercies are new every morning-- so that when my heart fails and my vision blurs, my mouth will declare forth your praise.

Lord, may my thanks giving always be a response rather than a ritual and may I learn to see that your love is everywhere.

Amen.

Dust of heaven

In the still

of the afternoon

when the sun

yawns

long

If you

tilt

your head

just so

You will find

the dust

of

heaven

right

round

Quiet

Unscripted.  Unedited.  Real.

Writing for five minutes.

A sort of writing flash mob.

I lay down in the field, crunchy with decay and prickly with spent blooms. Such is the bed I choose, sometimes. Down low, nestled among the swaying skeletons of summer, my only view is skyward. The blue expanse is dotted with a billowy white that absorbs my piercing gaze and, if I stay still long enough, I can almost feel the tilt of the globe.  I am captured by the quiet.

I am resting in the eye of the storm and nothing can penetrate this hallowed space. It might be true that a storm rages at the edges and the thunder claps and flashing lights compete to frame this space outright but I choose to remain in this circle of quiet. It is only here that I will be able to hear the murmurs riding atop the gentle breezes. It is here where I can be still and know.

Glisten

"Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips..."

-Anne Glenny Wilson

God of wonder

whose love reaches around

corners

-dark-

to find me

Nestle in me

a

courageous faith

that lets loose

the icy heart

and

glistens

gold

at

sunrise

Roots

Unscripted.  Unedited.  Real.

Writing for five minutes.

A sort of writing flash mob.

I remember when I first saw this tree. It's massive trunk in stark contrast to its feathery leaves. How I was humbled just standing next to it, painfully and gracefully aware of my smallness. And how amazingly beautiful it was. 

It was October and its usual verdant leaves were caught in transition between emerald and amber. To stand at its trunk and gaze up into its flowing, wide-spread branches was to be at once, humbled and sheltered.

But what grabbed me the most about this magnificent tree was its roots. They were dark and gnarled and expansive and they wove themselves in and out of each other, in route to the water just near.

And the whole monstrous behemoth of a tree leaned.........

It gracefully and beautifully leaned into its life source.

It was as if it inherently knew it could sway and bend, reach and extend, grow and rest

because of its roots, flug deep and far and wide.

I want to be that tree, planted by the stream, who bears fruit at the right time and whose leaves do not dry up.

And so, if I am ever cut down, I will be like the stump of Jesse and branches will sprout from my mouth and I will live.

Wide open

O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!

     Thy winds, thy wide great skies!

     Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!  

Long have I known a glory in it all,

     But never knew I this:

     Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.

My soul is all but out of me, --let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

I have felt this, keenly. 

I just spoke of it here and it seems to be fringing the edges of my heart these days...this swelling and bursting. Longing and aching.

And, yes, it begins with the splitting wide of my heart to make room for all of the glory ringed round. It stops me short when I chase the boys under the canopy of heaven and the sun leaks through the limbs and showers yellow all about us. The boys, they flit and fly. They try to catch even a single leaf to put in their pocket where it will burn amber. And I watch and I know. Later this week, we will find their ashes when we go to wash and crumbled gold dust will sift to the floor. The grit beneath my feet will chafe and I will look up and know. We tried to hold it close enough. 

Yes, I know this feeling. This burning. This desire. This looking all around and seeing beauty, heavy and dripping.

But soon, these trees will stop clapping and only their bony limbs will remain. Stripped of their raiment, they will stand naked and cold against the leaden skies. And what then? Will I be like a stilted lover whose heart has cooled with the dawn, chasing the shadows of night so as not to be discovered cleaving to a naked frame?

Oh, how fickle my heart is. 

Passion is not just throbbing emotion. It is a spreading out. An undergoing. An allowing of things to pass. A suffering, even.

It is me, hands outstretched, receiving. Always.

Yes, I want all of this beauty, all of this joy, all of this goodness. I want to press it to my lips. I want to  tattoo memories in the hidden places, so I will always remember.

But I need to pray to be pulled apart so that my soul is all but out of me. And, in the opening that is created, I need God to fall in.

Because, Lord, I have to hold thee close enough.

There is a winter coming.

Linking with Emily and Duane

Bethesda

I felt the constriction when dawn broke that day in the Springs. The tightening of forehead and eye bone that pulls one's vision inward and away from the light, it found me. And like a vise, it held me in its grip. For days.
It mattered not that the sun pulsed warm or that the rocks glowed red. It ignored the lilting timbre of boys and quiet rush of beast caught unawares.
It cared not that it was an uninvited guest or that it walked roughshod over my days.
Like a proverbial thorn in my side, it haunted my every waking hour.
The only escape seemed to be down the mountain.

But I was not going that way.

The irony was not lost on me: that in the ascending, I was suffering from a hypoxia, of sorts. I was closer to fine if I stopped moving. But you see, I had come to climb mountains and I didn't have time for these shenanigans.

It hurt the most that day when I wasn't listening. All of us wear layers of love and, sometimes, their very fabric chafes. I was wearing too many clothes that day, old ones that no longer fit, and they were piled beneath that sweater that I bought that made me think of you. I suppose I thought that all those layers would round out my rough edges but really, they only hid my bones. You longed to be close to my frame but I was too bundled to be found. One can suffocate from the weight of ill fitting garments.

The way out of the hurt was to walk in the thin air. To be alive in it, despite its desire to snuff out my flickering. Together, we peeled off the layers that were no longer my style and I breathed deep, in spite of myself. We looked up at those peaks, temporarily obscured by clouds of unknowing, and locked hands. Sometimes we need to be guided up mountains, to step in the footprints of those who know where they want to go. So were you to me.

And then, the miracle happened. Despite your leading, I still found my head spinning light and untethered, like a top flung to the edge of the table. But the light of the golden aspens fell across our path, exposing stones and limbs and other snares. And we just kept climbing. We were headed to that lake, nestled among the crags, named for maidens unseen, and it pulled at us. It was there, on the side of that pool, that the grip on my head and heart flew away.

It was water that would save me from the chains that had been clanking around my head. As we sat in silence around the lake, I watched the water ripple and calm, bubble and rest and I knew that this moment would be my undoing. The clouds, heavy and gray, let go of their essence and dripped life all over me. And, seated upon an ancient rock, placed their ages ago by water in a different form, I knew I had found my own Bethesda. And so I picked up my mat and walked.

Ten days later...what I've learned

I'm back from vacation and it's weird and wonderful all at the same time. I am both comforted and confused by the smell and feel of home after having been gone for days on end. There is even a little grief that comes upon the returning...the end of time set apart and away, contrasted with the realization that life continued on, even in your absence. The sun rose and set, rain fell, people went to work, time marched on...almost as if you being there mattered not. Humbling, it is.

And then there is the processing of it all. Perhaps I should just be like other people and let the last ten days be what they were: vacation. But I'm not other people and I write to figure out what I'm thinking and so I need to revisit it all. Again.

Ten days ago I was full to bursting with palpable excitement and energy. I had hopes and expectations of a trip that I portended as significant. Three generations were going to pack themselves up and journey together. This was going to be an adventure, dammit!

And, while there is most definitely a place for hope and anticipation, there is a more pressing need to simply be present and that, my friends was the first thing I learned while away.

Early on, I realized that if I didn't stop thinking about where we were headed and focus on where we actually were, I was going to miss the whole thing. 

And the whole thing was as big and wide as the Kansas sky. 

I found it in the early morning dark and the sharp smell of strong coffee 

in the small towns like Knob Noster and Emma 

in the bouncing of my dad's head to the driving rhythm of a Mumford & Sons song as the landscape blurred behind him

in the graceful majesty of miles upon miles of wind turbines, jutting upwards and spinning all pinwheel-like

And when the van decided to simply. stop. going

and we were, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere

when my usual response would most likely have been wailing and gnashing of teeth

my son, August, chose to respond with song. I turned from the symbol of ruin, the broken down van on the side of the road, and found my little boy and his ukelele and the dark ribbon of road, buoying me up with improvised melodies and suddenly we were gypsies and this was just the beginning of one grand adventure

And then someone told me to turn around and look and there was the sun, so heavy with orange and red that she couldn't hold her head up any longer and my cheeks glowed and we were all bathed in glory, swelling and sinking right there in the western sky.

That's how it all started, that very first day.

And it could have soured quickly and spoiled the whole brew but there were prayers being whispered and traveling mercies wrapped us right round and we had to smile at the angels disguised as tow truck drivers and state patrolmen.

++++++

I learned, on our second day, that even though I want to see and taste and feel the expanse of it all, my ability to truly capture every moment is determined by how I choose to frame them.  I take pictures because the lens closes in on those crazy rugged mountains with their spiky backbones and fuzzy pines and it disciplines me to do the same.  

I marveled at how thousands of pounds of rock could balance on its head with grace and gravitas and how maybe the impossible wasn't what I thought it was. That maybe, just maybe, I could dare to stand so boldly with dreams blazing and head tilted up and that what might appear as lunacy to some might be catalyst to another.

I stood small and, seemingly, insignificant before a cascade of rock and ripples and found myself with an incredible urge to scream my presence to all of creation.  As if, in failing to do so, I would be swallowed up by the hugeness and forgotten. But then I watched as the clouds played hide and seek with the sun and their shadows covered and uncovered the landscape beneath and I saw that there is a time for everything and everyone and all of it is unceasingly beautiful.

++++++

On the days that followed, we hiked among rock and ledge and we held our hands up to receive showers of gilded joy. The aspens shook with glory straight up and their quaking sang with a whispering beauty. As the skies turned to slate and dripped tears and the pines took on a darkness that hushed the hills, the aspens began to glow. The leaves were lit with a fire within and we drank up their light, eyes wide open and brimming. It's true...there's gold in them hills.

And we beheld the miracle that is a mountain pine. Roots held fast to rock, exposed to every extreme of weather, it takes the shape of its life experience. Unshielded, it becomes like clay in the hands of the potter wind and it twists and turns and wreathes upon itself. It would seem that such treatment would leave it maimed and disabled but it rallies, in spite of itself. The result is a gorgeous tableau of lines and curves that speak of both struggle and triumph and the beauty that comes from a life fully submitted and fully grounded.

I suppose the trip was truly epic--there were heroines and deeds of great strength and the muses spoke continually to my poet heart. But I think what I took most from this journey was the richness that comes from time well spent. Time with the people you love so much it aches. Time spent keeping your eyes wide open. Time allowed to unfold with wonder and curiosity. Time on top of time.

{Imperfect Prose} The shimmering

It has been a very dry season and I was beginning to stumble around, drunk on dust and the droning of locusts. Living in the middle of a drought causes your very edges to shrink in upon themselves and you become smaller, in spite of yourself. There is a brittleness to your frame that cowers in the presence of deep shadows.  Everything becomes too heavy.

And then one day, someone else's storm birthed my salvation.  The irony was not lost on this soul who craves justice and mercy.  From death comes life.  Always.

The leaden sky swelled with promise and then began to leak through all the holes I had poked in its crackling and leathered veneer...holes made by my pointed prayers and broken hallelujahs.  

And as the rain fell, I saw that it fell on the dying and the living with equal measure because surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

The rain fell, hour upon hour upon hour and we all bowed low from the weight of glory falling all around us.

These bodies had curled in upon themselves, parched and done with the business of living and, in a singular moment, it was as if that was the miracle...that in the giving of our very lives we had become the perfect vessel for receiving this living water.  Cupped corpses had become holy altars.

And in the quiet of the woods, stretched between limbs that reached for one another, were invisible strands.  Spun in the hushed nights and hidden in the folds of darkness.   The silent work that goes unheralded.  

It was the rain that revealed their magic.  

As the heavy sky dripped sloppy on the world, one by one, the fat drops were strung on strings. 

And suddenly the world was wrapped in gowns of gossamer and there was a shimmering.