A Scarlet Streamer of Grace

The dog and I - how many times have I used that expression, how many times will I - go out at 4 a.m. and it is sacred. As soon as I step outside what is God is there and I remember it never left - for how could what is all things in all places for all time go anywhere - and I breathe. My body lightens: the stars are blue: and faint trails of mist pass quickly under the moon. When we breathe, we are with life, and that is what it means to breathe. And in the old field, behind the old house, my walking slows, and I become still in ways that are as yet not fully all my nature. Yet I am not without hope, for blessings have never not followed my attention, which is only my willingness to remember love, which is remembered. Trains to the west, eighteen-wheelers on Route 112 heading south, and north pulling at me like a bulky lavender magnet. What is tangled undoes itself when we no longer insist it be untangled, and that is how we learn that we can only be hurt by our own thoughts. The pine trees remind me that I have no problems; the owl reminds me too. They rejoice with me quietly in pre-dawn darkness. Oh you who drew from my tired shoulders a scarlet streamer of grace, these words are not enough. Yet for you I come home early to write. For you - for a little while longer - I kneel.