leave me down here, bleeding slow; oozing thoughts and murmuring low. breathing like it's all i know. my jaw hard against tile floor and hands cold from the loud encore; i know i've thought of you before. encircling the kitchen lights with memories from moments past that immediately flicker but brightly last and cast the shadow behind my eyes, wherein you will find the lullabies that keep my heart still and me alive. leave me down here, it is familiar, the dim reflection in the hallway mirror; it is familiar to me, this mobile of softly coloured hues that turn and sing me, sing me to sleep...

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?" - Isaiah 55:1-2a

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a woman - a mother - in a kitchen, at a cutting board, asking in her heart for grace for the day from a Holy One, omnipotent but humanly distant. a teenage girl crying on her mother's shoulder because she can't yet understand this Love she's been brought up hearing about. an old man cradling his head in his palms, catching tears of remorse for the things he has not been to his children. an elderly woman in a nightgown with frills, holding up her fingers to Heaven, her heart beating as passionately as when she was young, smiling with a holy countenance at this friendly Reaper, sent to fly her home; her family members the next day gazing blindly with their watery vision into her grave in the soil. a heart surging with joy and comfort in a pew in the morning but returning home feeling dull and restless again. a young man lying in a hospital bed, the immensity of what his heart is being flooded with bringing tears to his eyes, his eyes that might have seen the world a little longer in the naivety and blithe ignorance of a boy his age.

these glimpses of heaven here on earth. the spiritual world used to feel like pins in a pin cushion, stuck in, protruding, and just not adhering to reality. now life feels like a small complex tapestry with tears revealing the magnificent and enormous wall on which it is hung.

tears - the times when you realize what's permanent. what will fade away and what will last. when death and eternity seem no further than the period at the end of a sentence or the end of a song, inevitable and resolute. when life here is realized for what it is, only half of the story and much less indomitable than we see it. when suddenly you feel like you are on your toes teetering on the cliff of all things known.

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for some people, I think growing old is no more than losing the romantic padding of physical beauty that softens the impact of the person him/herself .

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"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;" - Isaiah 49:15-16