Tired Kings Swimming in Gold

 

Give me all the daring winds that shake the trees, launching the flight of the maple seeds down, down, down.  Give me all the rolling hues that stretch across the sky, greys and blues--the clouds, light and dark.  Give me all the roaring and the booming and the rustling winds that hold us captive.  Let me stand beneath it all as the whole earth declares his glory. Let the spring rains fall, I won’t mind. In the wildest weather, my soul delights. In the wildest weather, how can we not feel so beautifully alive?

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The song that reaches in and stirs the deep, fueling the fire that moves my brush.  It sends my fingers dancing upon the keys as if they were a steady rain healing the earth. The earth of my mind. The flow of words colliding on the screen, making a home, finding sense in the stillness of the day’s end. A cool breeze sweeps over the hours well lived and through home well used. 

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The family gathered over French toast for dinner and the baby sits with one knee raised, her face covered in a purple puree.  She laughs at something, it could be nothing. They laugh. Our eyes meet and we laugh too.  The cycle begins again.  Laughing at the laughter.   At her. At them. At us.

We might as well be kings swimming in gold. 

Tired kings swimming in gold.

Gold disguised as teaching lessons, making lunches, working hard, standing in the wind, and having so much to love.

It was a Monday.

A brief prelude to the show.

The air is electric. Blades of grass and infant green leaves shake with anticipation.  That smell, the one that reminds you that you are so deeply alive.  The scent more intoxicating that almost any other thing, it calls us one by one.

As far as the greatest scents, I argue the following: brewing coffee, cookies baking in the oven, onions simmering in butter, old books, and the sea.  But this is a magic so fleeting.  A brief prelude to the show. Nothing we can ever contrive.

Stop the baths. Stop the dishes. Get out here already. Scoop up the clean baby with fuzzy hair in ducky pajamas. 

We gather on the swing, on the rocker just her size, on a white, wooden chair.  Another stroke of grey darkens the sky, pressing in all around us. A butter yellow in the distance, but for now, rolling grey.

A rumble booms and sends delight through our souls.  The children jump in a blend of excitement and uncertainty. They run inside and return just as light slices through the air.

Children shriek wildly.  Eyes twinkle.

It’s getting closer.  Do you feel it? 

A hat! A hat! She decides that alone will protect us all, as we sit under the large covered porch. 

The baby, she doesn’t know what is happening, but all the living creatures feel the magic in the air. All of us living creatures feel the power of our maker rumbling and shaking the places we exist.  Her little body flutters in the playful wind like a butterfly, barely contained in my arms. Her eyes fill with a radiant light.

My head on your shoulder, my favorite place.  We rock gently as the grey spreads, like a wash of saturated watercolor leaving no fibers untouched. 

One more giant gush sweeps up all the branches on all the trees announcing an arrival. 

And in unison, in a song, in a rhythm that sustains the world, drip drop drip drop drip drop.

We’ll go about what must be done, washing dirty faces and dishes.  But  we pause to breathe in the moments that usher in the rain, to wait in anticipation with all the natural world, once again finding our place among creation as electricity dances in air, declaring the creator.

And in unison, in a song, in a rhythm that sustains the world, drip drop drip drop drip drop.