Blessing

Something about the dimness of a rainy sky has its fingers rooted in my spirit, so that when the rain comes cold and trembling to the thirsty ground, it comes singing like a blessing. It draws me irresistibly outside to hold me close, to hold me shivering and happy, bare-foot in the muddy grass and face tilted to the sky-born water, calling out:

Oh wash my eyes and make me see!
Wash my lips and make them clean,
run down my chin and through my teeth
until I thirst no more!

Beneath me, the earth drinks deep until its pores are full and overflowing in cool streams between my toes. I am too small to do the same: this body cannot hold enough of anything to satisfy my heaven-reaching soul.

Someone’s voice is in the rain and echoes in my brain. It is a love song. It cries:

I love you, I love you,
I will quench your thirst both today and tomorrow,
when the sun returns to wither the grass,
and the earth’s wells run dry.

These words, falling heavy on my chest, steal the breath from my throat.
With my tiny voice drowning in all this thunder, how can I sing my reply?

Picture of A Summer Evening

Thunder grumbles in the distance like a giant restless river. The air and clouds hang heavy with the promise of rain, but rain doesn't come. The scorched, thirsty ground remains dry.

--

The bird's sound is not like any kind of music that I know, but rings clear in trills and rounded notes, smooth and loud and lilting. I wonder at the rippling sound bursting from the bird's throat, surely shaped so differently from my own. It is not so much a song--(if some wild melody is promised, it fades too quickly, only completed, perhaps, in the human mind)--but what else can we call it?

--

Sunset glows warm through the thinning cloud-veil;
gentle colors gather in the west, saying
farewell to the day.
No ray of light can needle through the heavy air
and brush across the leaves to set them ablaze--
the evening trees of green and gold
are only green tonight.

--

I saw a firefly. Couldn't tell if he was green or yellow, but the light was very bright. He blinked with his whole body, and fifteen others followed him at once.

--

It's dark now, so the windows become mirrors, and I can only see outside through my own reflection. My body is too narrow to watch the whole night wrap its arms around the house, but the night doesn't mind. I think the bird sleeps with the sun, both of them silent as the crickets take up the song of summer, and the moon thrusts its silver light against the other side of the inky clouds, hoping that a sliver will peek through. Perhaps, here and there, it does.

It's still dark.

Thunder grumbles again, and again the ground and I will hold our breaths for rain. It is only a promise. Perhaps it will come when I, too, lie down and sleep.

Two fireflies are left blinking above the grass. They surge up, up, higher and higher, their light twinkling in bright streaks behind them.

They are my stars against the murky sky.

Last Day of Blog Challenge, Squirrels, and Other Miscellaneous Stuff

Today is the last day of the Blog Challenge! I think I've succeeded.
It's sad that January has come to an end already. I can't believe that we're a month into the new year so quickly.
I wish I had something extremely insightful to say on this auspicious day, but I don't.

Our AP Biology midterm is tomorrow. Wah.

I don't want to quit piano lessons, but I'm seriously doubting their worth when I don't get to practice enough during the week. The piece I'm working on now is really hard, and I feel guilty that I can't give it the time it needs to be good. I don't think I'll be ready for a recital in May.

Apt Visual Depiction of High-School Students at USP:

they say you're really not somebody
until somebody else loves you
well i am waiting to make somebody somebody
soon.
~ Are We There Yet - Ingrid Michaelson
(Emmie showed me this today and I love it :D)


Look outside. Stick your head out the front door. It's a beautiful day today.

Home

The sunset sky last night was beautiful, bright red and orange and yellow streaked across a soft blue-purple canvas. I watched it through the black naked branches of the trees stretching up into the west, and it took my breath away. Just a day before that, crystal-white snow covered those same branches and blanketed the ground, while sparkling icicles hung from every twig and roof and windowsill.
There is something about the quiet beauty of Nature that stirs a longing in me, a yearning for something else. It is a longing that I have always had, but mostly stays sleeping within me, only awakening from time to time. I think this is a longing that everybody has, though each person has a different perception of it. It's perhaps funny, because many people look to Nature to satisfy that longing, but for me, it only makes the longing worse. I stared out the window the other day, thought of forested hills and golden moonlight, and wondered what I was looking for. Then it occurred to me.

I want to go Home.

It is as simple as that. I see the sunset and I think of a wider sky, perhaps painted with more colors. I see the trees and I think of taller ones whose branches will hold me without fear of falling. I see the rivers that we pass by while driving and I think of walking along one's side, marveling at the sweet clear waters and the joyful rushing sound, walking, walking under dazzling open skies and over higher, greener hills. Following the river on and on until I come to a shining city where the gates are always open.
What will it be like to open my eyes to a brighter world, to wake up free from sin, to finally run to my Father and feel His arms around me?

I can't wait to go Home.