Monday, August 30, 2010

Reflection.

My commute is now about 7 minutes.  It used to be a minimum of 25.  You guessed it, I'm back in my house in Athens.  Thank God.  Today I visited the little country house nearly one month after we left and the only thing I found that I missed was the feeling that my grandmother's spirit might be out there amongst the trees.  She loved that little spot - it was the best thing she ever had.  I wonder if this spot here in Athens is my little place, my nest, my refuge from life's storm.  Could be.  All I know is that the instant we got things cleaned up and began to put our things back in the house, hang our pictures back on the walls, cut the grass, and cook a meal - I felt better all over.  A quiet sense of peace.
I really don't miss the country.  Maybe I miss the proximity to my father's place and his gigantic oak trees that must be 200 years old.  Or the sounds of the creek below my grandmother's house.  The baby geese that we got to watch grow over the course of the Spring.  Maybe I miss that feeling of really being in the place where I grew up.  But here it is my life I'm living, starting fresh and new, but not forgetting all that I could have lost in those spaces in between - the place I always belonged.  I'm really thankful for that time I had to spend out there in that tiny little hot/cold house.  I'm thankful for all of the memories I regained while in that space: the way my Granny looked standing at the stove with her apron on and her spatula in hand (I can smell the bacon frying), the ancient echos of my childhood laughter when my Uncle Keith and I used to squirt each other with the water hose, Granny reciting the poem about leaves falling in the wind, and all of the times our family gathered there to eat and laugh and love.
No life is perfect.  No life is without pain and sacrifice.  But I've also found that no life is without tender moments of real peace and love and laughter and minutes you'd like to bottle up and save for later so you'd never forget what it felt like when they happened.  What I would give now to lay my head in Granny's soft lap and feel her long slender fingers course through my hair.  What I would give to be a child again swinging mightily on the tire swing my father hung from the limb of that giant oak tree.  What I'd give to hold my baby brother in my arms again.  And wouldn't we all love to know then what we know now?

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Leaving

Things are not always what they seem.
Your face in the shadows, once in the moonlight, now gone.
Sometimes I still see you there when you want to be.

What is this mess we've made?
It is like a pink rubber ball bouncing rapidly down a steep, dark slope.
Fresh at once then losing speed until it rolls no more.

You have been my heaven and my in-between.
But as you fade away I know this will not be
everything I thought it could.

Still I reach for you in the night.
Someday I hope you may return to me
and be a warm welcome against my cold skin.

My soul awaits yours and I will try to live fully.
Surely it cannot be much longer
until we finally get it right.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

It is you my love.

I knew you a hundred years ago
I saw you walking on those cold
grey cobblestones which fit so perfectly together.

You walked there in the crevice of my mind
and in the years since my longing for you deepened
into something I shall know as love.

When I saw you again I did not know you.
It was my soul that whispered, he's here.
After all this time, I know it is you.

Easy to smooth the painful cries of long ago,
tears that fell on cold window panes
and handkerchiefs not embroidered with loose change.

Easy it is now to look into your eyes
beautiful, brown, knowing who I am from the start.
I am limp when you reach for me underneath the stars.

It is okay my love.  No need to wait any longer.
This time we will not be denied what we could not have then.
Let us live a thousand more years warmed in the light of the sun.

Monday, August 9, 2010

I Will Come To You

When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

Sometimes when all your dreams may have seen better days
And you don't know how or why, but you've lost your way
Have no fear when your tears are fallin'
I will hear your spirit callin'
And I swear I'll be there come what may

When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

I will come to you

'Cause even if we can't be together
We'll be friends now and forever
And I swear that I'll be there come what may
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

We all need somebody we can turn to
Someone who'll always understand
So if you feel that your soul is dyin'
And you need the strength to keep tryin'
I'll reach out and take your hand

I'll reach out and take your hand

Oh I will come to you
When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

Oh I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

I will come to you,
Oh I will come to you

Hanson