goodnight

I saw more worms today than I have people in the last month. My feet hurt tonight. My garden shoes have no support and I’m feeling it. Feeling the flatness of this quarter acre lot I’m trying to cultivate. Feeling the histamine working over my nose and throat. I’m allergic to everything I love about spring and it’s just plain sad.

I let out the cuff in my overalls because temps are dropping tonight and my ankles feel the exposure. The crease is full of dirt and I catch it in my boots as if I wasn’t already filthy enough. I’m burning yard and garden debris and certain it will put me over the allergy-edge. I’ll probably be a mouth-breather until summer. I’ll cuddle up with Benadryl tonight and savor the drowsy relief for the few minutes before I pass out. Today’s record for sneezes in a row was fifteen. Wasn’t sure what planet I was on once I opened my eyes again. I wish you loved me back, spring.

The days feels mundane as is if there is nothing notable to divulge to another. But there’s plenty beneath the topsoil that’s made the soles of my feet ache and my heart full. There’s plenty. Most of life happens behind the veil of the face. So I’ll tell you about the plywood board that’s burning a perfect ring in the middle. I hear Johnny Cash sing Ring of Fire in my head because I’ve always got a song for every bit of life that mirrors it. If you don’t answer in song, you’re boring.

Gillian Welch is serenading me just now with Dear Someone and her haunting harmony.

“One little star, smiling tonight,

Knows where you are,

Stay, little star, steady and bright,

To guide me afar…”

The stars are indeed steady. The oldest prophets. They’ve seen it all. Nothing new under the sun or moon or stars. This pandemic has given us eyes wide open, but the stars have never once closed theirs. Never once failed to shine through all the traffic below to the very place we rest our heads each night.

Unfailing.

That loaded word. That’s why we look up when there’s nowhere else to turn. Why our pupils grow full searching for the light. Promises flung against the midnight sky so we can see them when it gets dark down here. And it does get dark here. But if it didn’t we would not perceive the stars that hide by day in similar light, taking the dim stage to tell their ancient tales of never-failing, steadfast and true faithfulness, by night.

Good and night. Goodnight.