People.

For the first time in days

and days

I am alone.

Alone in my home

for a few short hours.

Rain has come again and again.

I am tired.

I really am.

I rest in my bed.

I read. I write. I eat a little.

I rest on the couch.

I go for a walk,

just a walk.

Dainty flower cups holding droplets of rain.

Magnificent dandelions.

Yes, magnificent and holding up so well through the deluge.

I run my hand along purple grasses.

Purple grasses!

I wonder, does it get any lovelier?

The Twenty-fourth of July, 2014 dawned sunny with blue skies.

Showers did come, but the sun was always close at hand.

How,  thought I

could it have been otherwise?

And July 25th brought an entire day of rain, but not the 24th,

not on Thursday the Twenty-Fourth of July.

Perfect days.

There really are more perfect days out there than I have imagined or have ever given life credit for.

Perfect in their mundaneness, their simplicity, their humdrum repetition.

Perfect days.

I feel they are so readily about us.

Sometimes there are perfect days on a grand scale

where each moment has been precisely calculated and planned and tenderly attended to, And Time unfolds

Beautifully,

As she will.

I hear my Father saying:

I want to give you everything.

I want to give you life, a mother, a father,

perhaps a brother or sister or two.

I want to give you earth to squeeze through your toes

And sky above to lay on your back, look up at and shout “I see a witch!” ” I see a sock!”

Thread-like, cotton candy wisps

swirling, spinning into something entirely new every moment–

Watch or you will miss the witch,

the sock.

And I.

I want to give you everything too.

Places for you as lovely and beautiful as can be.

I want for you happiness,

and more happiness

and joy:

That you may know joy.

And I give it to you

as imperfect as my giving may be.

I tie together robes of life

of beginnings and endings worn and woven together on this day.

Catching my breath,

as I will over and over

Over

You.

Him.

Exquisite.

Beauty.

Glimpses of times before, now and through this veil

I see,

I am weeping.

She is weeping.

The Mothers.

I don’t pretend to understand what all these thoughts mean

but there they are

and I know I must keep all these things,

ponder them in my heart.

“Nothing But Hope,”

Read the beggar’s placard off I-70 and Quebec.

You and me both buddy,

you and me both.

Hope.

I hang on to it in happy times

and cling on to it when I, a little like the beggar–

I said a little,

feeling desperate in my  prayers to Father above.

“I hope to love the day–my daughter is getting married,”

Penned by me late on the eve of July 23rd.

And on my knees, July 24, 5:30 a.m.:

“I pray Rachel and Quin may have  a beautiful day”.

And so it was.

Nothing but hope.

There it is.

It is what I have.

In all its beauty

and simplicity.