Archive for November, 2021

Hidden Majesty

0
3 years
by in Christ, Christian, current events, love, poetry 
Alas, winter chill,
you cold-hearted soul;
you interrupt my
intake of reverie.

In sweet, sweet sorrow 
I clip the last blooms of fall --
wildflowers glowing in
fuchsia, crimson, burgundy and linen.

This daybreak, just past the first frost,
the browning of burn now
presses their edges.
alas, valiance on display until the very last, 
but for one.

     one

One set of glowing petals peeks from below,
having crept around and under;
its parent stem bent and broken to the ground,
yet, this one has found its way to shine upward.

… diminutive, brilliant, petite and perfect.

Why am I surprised this vine has bloomed so,
has outlasted its fellows 
there in its poverty and low estate?

Why?
In its meekness
Its humility
Its hardship
Its fortitude
All of these and beauty, too.

Why, did I presuppose?
its offering would be less,
its contribution trivial,
overlookable
pitiable
weak.

Look beyond!
the bridal bouquet awaits 
its day at the altar,
its fulfillment in the one
counted out,
now counted upon. 

there.
now

I wanna be that kind of book

0
3 years
by in art, Body, Deeper Sensation, In Action, Life, Made to Move, writing

I pick the book up from its assigned resting spot and attempt to flip through its pages. Each one sticks to the next. I can’t for the life of me get them separated. I fiddle with the edges. I try and slide the corner. I gather a handful of pages hoping the random shuffle will loosen the page I want. No luck. Thunk, thunk, thunk, go the chunks of text.

Clearly, no one has freed this book from its hot-off-the-presses status. But how… without licking my fingers? Such a Pre-Covid thought, that. In my bag I have a contraband water bottle, perhaps some moisture from that? Or maybe my gloves with fingertips designed to slide a screen would do the trick, but where are the?

Oh good grief. Yes, yes I did it. Surreptitiously, I dot my index finger with a dab of saliva and successfully work one page away from the other. Crinkle, crinkle, slide. There it goes. One page down. Only 373 more to go.

(I had the same experience at Harris Teeter yesterday, trying as I might to release the grip of the plastic bag opening without defaulting to stripping my mask from my nose and mouth and licking my fingers. Suffice to say, after setting my two gala apples on the cart left by the produce manager in order to recruit both hands for the task, I finally gave up and set both the apples and the unopened plastic bag in the bottom of my basket.) But I digress…

Today I pick up the same book from its assigned resting spot, but this one is in a different location. A more traveled location. A more popular spot. This book, I know right away, has had many visitors stop by for a visit. Its pages fall easily, one from the other. Its surfaces are crinkled and easy to grip. Its printed words seem to invite me in: 

Look here and over here.
Turn to this page, now that. 
Oh, here's something you'll like! 
Wherever you want to go, I am with you. 
Just as I have been here 
for all those who have sat where you are sitting
and accepted my invitation to excursion through my pages.

I had what seemed an odd thought just then…

I would much rather be this book than the other, the one so seldom opened. I prefer risking a ragged interaction or two to sitting idle in a forgotten corner or at arms reach from an uninterested patron. I would rather be a book that’s read, that’s sung from, that’s paged through. I would rather be dog-eared, crinkled, scribbled upon or even mended after a bout of overly enthusiastic use, than pristine and shimmering, on display in some out-of-the-way spot gathering dust but inspiring no interest, no interaction, no comment.

Yes, me and that Velveteen Rabbit, we’ve done some communing over the years.

A toy, played with, is beloved. Real, even.

A book, read and re-read, beloved, too. Alive, even.

I wanna be that kind of book.

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