What utterly precious
thing carries in a single drop the potency to make your whole being
wakeup.comealive.dance.weep.glow.giggle?
Could it be the instant
the sun bursts through the clouds and wraps itself across the back of your
chilly neck?
Might it be the
soft hand that gently, quietly enfolds yours in a tenderness-hungry moment?
Or perhaps it is
the patterned shadow of leaves on fence,
the shape of a
flower as it ripens,
avocado melting
on tongue,
Handel’s Thanks Be To Thee echoing through the
evening,
the gravity
glide of skiing,
water coursing
over legs,
the view at the
summit,
yoga’s child’s pose,
stroking a pet’s
warm silken fur,
hands gooey with
clay or paint or mud or dough,
breezes in the tree
limbs,
a candlelit
sunset,
nectar sticky on
lips,
birdsong amidst
silence,
the magnificent
depths of vibrant oil on a Schwennesen
canvas?
For me, it is
any of these…
For me, it was
the one fallen crimson.and.gold leaf I passed which called me back to retrieve it on the long walk today. For me, too, it was the
sigh and shiver of maples against last night's pure cobalt sky.
But most of all,
it was that short quenching rain that pelted windows and tin roof waking me at
the same black predawn hour that an earthquake hit one month and one day ago.
It was that particular sound of the rain; it was my soul’s thirst for lushness,
verdant wetness, waterfalling; it was the way the air smelled thick and earthy
and robust with the promises and secrets of autumn.
It was that one
slender drop that remained on a crispy leaf of the bush long after the clouds
had lifted; it was that one slender drop that patiently offered itself to the
desiccated leaf; it was that one slender drop that was my salvation over and
over again today. It was that which awakened my exhilaration.
