Fragments of My April

 

 

i. just a desk corner and my dusty keyboard
ii. bathroom convocation over the mascara tube; my girls play so nicely together
iii. the princess in the hall of mirrors
iv. my small charge's preparations for dabbling in devourable zoology
v. no better time than a sunny afternoon to undertake a vivacious career as a pirate

Yellow Laughter, Knee-Scraped Trees

She entered, wringing winter from
her hair, dripping petals on the carpet.
We welcomed her with arms wide open,
brought her steaming tea to warm
her translucent bones.
Her fingers spelled out spring under the mug
and her eyes flashed dogwood.

Funny, how we forgot so quickly why she came,
pale laughter fading to grey, followed by rain.
In the silence, bark peeled from the trees.

In the morning we found that the wind had blown her away,
leaving April to occupy the orchard.

a note from the past

Some days there are headaches and fights in the kitchen and long afternoons and aching hip joints and the demands of undesired (but obligatory) travel and over-browned cinnamon rolls after a series of technically inconsequential failures of performance and being that pile into one heap of miserable memory.

And some days—the same days, even—there are fingers sticky with cream cheese glaze and cartwheeling lessons in the back yard just before dusk and pancakes and climbing to the top of the swing set and a host of small moments that somehow seem to counterbalance all of the distress of existing.

Provided, of course, I bother to remember them.

We're still working on that—the remembering.

04.07.2015

Easter

The house of my soul is too small for you to enter: make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it. | Augustine, Confessions

—

There's no easy way to face Easter. Not today. Perhaps not ever. If I have been guilty of flippancy, it is only because the weight of emphasis lies uncomfortably close to what is hard to touch on a good day, on a day when the sharp edges blur through sunlight and water and discouragement ebbs beneath a rush of contentment. Pleasant as platitude and prayer might be for a holiday centered around acknowledgement of a supernatural gift (is that not indeed what the Resurrection was and is?) there is neither here for the offering. Instead, I am wrestling with the idea of acceptance. With the idea of being cracked open and hollowed and reshaped. With the raging battle between the absurdity and the appeal of renewal. 


The house of my soul....lies in ruins: rebuild it. 

His mercies....are new every morning.

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared....and they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen—


The dichotomy is enormous; it is an age-old struggle: death against life, trust against suspicion, promise against a vast entity called pain. What myth more potently represents that contrast than the sequence of events between Good Friday's night and Easter morning? Somewhere between the blackout of an afternoon and the sunrise of an ancient morning is nested a whisper of a consummate fulfillment — there is a deeper magic.

And just like that the gap closes.

 —

The house of my soul....lies in ruins: rebuild it.

I can't claim to understand, not really, not all of it, not nearly all of it; but right now maybe this is enough: that in the honouring of a long-spoken myth the clarion call summoning one heart to its home is heard. Maybe this is enough: that even if the story is beyond me I believe, I believe that there is resurrection.

More than that, I believe in His resurrection. 

In life against death. In trust against doubt. In promise.

I believe that He will rebuild this house.

This is Easter. This is hope.

Life.


There is a deeper magic.