I Swallow the Light Hungrily

Morning stillness, smoke hanging low across the village, the fields bereft of the blue light to which our Augustinian hearts aspire. Lambs tip-toe after their Mamas over crusty snow, while the lamb-colored crescent moon appears to gaze at us all enacting yet another morning in a crumbling empire, a dissembling patriarchy, a distracted technological culture. My arguments for and against the Lord are both the Lord but in a way that I cannot yet bring forth in language, a failure I may take with me into death. The old parsonage, which is presently our home, begins falling apart and we discover antipathy where we had hoped to become caretakers. When unhappy, I often picture Ascutney rising in its jagged way off the sloping hills of lower Vermont, and when desolated I drive there and climb it. We do what works and yet begin to sense the presence of a director for whom "works" means something different altogether. The water boils for tea, the mail comes, the roast thaws. We slip into the pantry, she leans on the first cupboard, long skirt hiked and reaches under and behind both to guide and pace me inside her. To be so foolish on such a stage - what could possibly justify it? The horses paw snow, snorting as I throw them hay. In the distance, a crow executes a broad circle, coming to rest on the dead maple just beyond the pasture, eyeballing the compost's delectable remains. As a prism for Jesus, I swallow the light hungrily, trusting the interior to rainbow.