Paleo lunch packed.
Excuses kicked to the curb.
Jumping back on the train. Making it public so I have accountability.
REBOOT….
When love remains
in youth’s retreat
in aching hands
and swollen feet
Laugh-lines deepen
and hips grow wide
dance steps slow with
knees modified
Our vision dims
and elbows snap
we sometimes wish
for mid-day naps
Drooping eyelids
and sagging jowl
sun-spot hands clasped
between us now
We walk a path
through sun and rains
each day brand new
when love remains
You live in the thin veil between waking and sleeping,
an apparition of memory given form when I am tired,
weary-worn by day grinding against day against day.
Shadow and voice,
whispers of your disapproval stretching across eternity.
Your days were long and hard,
your face burned by the sun’s rising and setting
as you scratched out a living from reluctant earth.
Hands cracked by labor,
blistered by the rough and splintered grey of the hoe handle,
red from the lye soap and boiling water of the laundry.
You carried your daily chores as a yoke laid upon you by the Savior,
a holy calling to which there was no equal.
Surely no one suffered as you suffered.
And I,
I was to be a voice crying in the wilderness.
No less.
I was not just to be the replacement of your fallen son,
but I was to shake the very foundations of the unrepentant.
I don’t know just when it happened,
when your face darkened
and you realized I would never be the embodiment of your contrition.
Had I known your love was conditional, would it have mattered so much to me then?
Why does it matter to me now?
A grandmother’s love.
Is it not to be without condition?
And why do I find you here
between the slowing beats of my heart,
your words not dulled by the passing years but sharpened by time and shadows,
cutting to the marrow.
When you were carried to the bosom of Father Abraham
I hoped you would find peace
and I,
I a full breath free of the tight bands your regret cast about me.
But, you remain in the thin veil between my waking and sleeping
and I,
I am tired.
I see emerald eyes,
a heart that burns with passion,
words set free on vagrant winds.
I see strength, brawn, and beauty.
But those emerald eyes have beheld worlds shattered.
Images not easily forgot.
How the cover conceals your pain and how we,
if we could,
seek to shoulder a portion of your quiet suffering.
Loosen your grip so we too may bear it with you.
You are not alone.
White set against eternal blue
A robin dances on verdant green with expectation
West winds blow cool against my skin
Goosebumps rise.
Beneath me the world spins
and I spin with it
Unaware.
Dirt and rock and fire then rock and dirt again
until it comes out the other side
and the bottoms of our feet meet.
We are the same, you and I.
Connected.
Our words strange in untuned ears
The color of your skin compliments mine
and mine yours
as we stand spinning on this ball
Unaware.
Yet, connected.
Flesh upon earth upon rock upon fire upon rock upon earth upon flesh.
Connected.
She danced with careless abandon,
we shuffled our feet.
She smiled without prompting,
we tipped our glasses.
Moments stolen from worry.
Surrendered.
She is free and we are bound.
Help me remove these shackles.
OK WordPress. Seriously? Did me adding Workouts and Muscle to the Topics list of the Reader really need to land THOSE images in the results? Wow. So is there no way to filter out that sort of content? I have tried adding those topics to my reader in the past but removed them because of a few unwelcomed posts in the results but thought perhaps those were an anomaly. Guess not. Anyone know how to avoid getting an eye-load of that stuff when what you really want are workout blogs that promote building muscle and fitness? I can’t see a filtering preference.
