A Lantern Remembering Family

Graves of horses, graves of dogs. Nobody is sadder than me. A week before she visited I drove to Vermont and climbed Ascutney in order to remember who I am. The devil gets in your face and you brush him aside, tired at last of playing zero-sum games, all he ever has to offer. I am mountains now, now I am starlight on violets in clearings, now I am the darkness in which moons and stars are possible. Teach all boys to bake bread, make them read Emily Dickinson, let them be alone a lot, trust them to figure nonviolence out. Violins ascending scales not used since the Hittites obliterated the Hurrians. Get lost, got it? The better way is in your mind awaiting your willingness to try it. Only now knowing the Goddess I live with is older even than Christ. Trust me, the journey ends, often before the body does. Kids who leave their bikes out in the rain, parents who let it go. Suddenly the light here is straight out of Maxfield Parrish, luminous golds and yellows, compass-like blues, as if the heart were remembering it is a lantern remembering family everywhere. And with that, shall we begin?