Sometimes when I listen to the lyrics or melodies of songs, I choke up. The depth, the artistry, the pathos—it is a profound gift to experience music.
Other times, I can be moved to tears by the clanking of the trailer stacked with haybales. My brother drove by early today pulling a load of 14 round bales back to the main ranch. Thousands of pounds of food for the cattle, baled and stacked against the coming of the winter.
My brother loves music. I wonder what station he was listening to as he navigated the sharp turn onto the highway. I doubt the DJ was playing the tune that had popped into my head as I watched him go by.
“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go…”
Yes, it may be hard to believe, but as I’d sat mulling the redundant demands of the changing seasons, the seven dwarves had marched into my brain. They’re all here now, milling around, mocking my somber mood.
“How about I recite some your favorite verses from Ecclesiastes?” Happy asks. “What do we gain by all the toil at which we toil under the sun?” He grins sarcastically and adds, “All is vanity and a striving after the wind. But you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.”
“I’m past all that,” I snap.
Grumpy sneers at me. “Liar!” Bashful gasps at such rude directness, and Sneezy begins to huff and puff. Doc grabs Dopey and Sleepy by their ears and yanks them straight into the line of fire. A seismic sneeze blows our shelter to smithereens and sends us tumbling down the hill, spilling our woefully inadequate pails of water. It’s been a dry August.
“I have people,” I reassure myself as I get up and brush off. “They’d take me in.” “Thou dost have people,” sayeth the Lord. “But thou shalt not ask to be taken in.” “Stop talking like that,” I grin. “You sound silly. But you’re right, I’m still sufficient.”
I’ve been harvesting weeds. Sonchus oleraceus (Sowthistle), for instance. The flowers are hermaphroditic. It’s edible, nutritious, and one of the five bitter herbs humans are commanded to eat on all the nights of Passover. Every one of us. The whole rainbow. The old young small and large of us. It’s the best way to remember the cruelty of slavery, the absurdity of dichotomies, and the joy of emancipation.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho. It’s off to death we’ll eventually go. But before we arrive, let’s savor the harmonies, complexities, and wonderments. Let’s feed the cattle. And stoke the fire. And eat the bitter herbs.
The properties of light are complex, like the bones in your feet. All streams flow to the sea, so the wise ones grow more secretive. Discreet. They disguise the halting steps, callouses, and short, distorted dreams.
It takes a practiced eye to spot the game and take aim. The cleanest shot is often a long line of honking geese, gliding unaware of their bodies as sustenance or warmth. Long necks slice thin air, innocent. Provocative.
Is the twinkle in God’s eye First Light? Does the venom of the snake create the ache that comes from walking home? I mean the long ways home, the ways of those beloved or betrayed, afraid to be together, afraid to be alone.
First rights of refusal come with dawn, but the last rights of twilight are bereft. The fall of night allows us to exchange the little we have left, and our eyes adjust so few of us plummet to sure death. Just yet.
The light you see at midnight has traveled a long time. Its name is love, its only crime, refusing to be known. So beautiful, the feet of those who bring good news, who bring the light.
Goose down fills our rainbow-colored coats, and our lamps are thus defiled with scented oil. Winter has arrived across our shoulders. We’re blinded by the light across the snow, but the demons in our feet are bound by joy.
So do not be afraid, you weary hobos. Our blessings are a song with bitter words. We’re nourished by the plants we thought were weeds. Oh, may our days be long, our feet be strong upon this land. This day. This light. These feet.
Short visits with an honest God 