The circle of light widens, and I find that, now looking up at the sky, it is night. There are no stars and there is no moon, only a small pinprick of light from whence cometh the spotlight that continues to wash over me. I feel exposed, and naked, though I can see that trousers (such a better word than pants) are covering my legs, shoes are covering my feet, I don’t look at my chest, but the existence of sleeves on my arms allows me the bound of faith that the rest of some semblance of shirt is covering it. But, my soul feels exposed too, and there is no way, faith withstanding, to know whether it is covered (whatever that might mean) or not. There are trees here: warm colors spring forth from among their branches amidst an ever-decreasing measure of coldness in the air. Leaves fall— their colors seem to have lost some of their vibrance now that they are strewn across the mud and the glass sidewalk.
A slight wind passes by my face, and I feel as if my soul-strings are unwinding. In front of me, I see a man knitted in my form from the strings that have come from within me. Empty. I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to take this: Is this the image of what has always been within me, what I am striving for, or some sort of generational continuance of a tapestry never quite finished with each link in its sewing… only worked on as time goes on? I think back to when I was only ten years of age and wrote down on a piece of college-lined paper the outline of my life. First major job by age 22, married at age 25, and kids by 30. From there I had projected all the way to the age bracket of 80-90 after which I had placed three question marks in succession with a very bold and underlined exclamation mark. So much of life is cycles: water cycle, day and night, seasons… life. I just didn’t want my life to follow the same old cycle: Birth, school, job, marriage, kids, mid-life crisis, grandkids, Death. I feel that by the time we are bringing life into this world we haven’t had scarcely enough time to figure out our own lives. But I digress, children are our future, and we were children once too, but, somehow, although I still feel as a child, I feel more like I belong to the past than the present, much less the future.
Drum beat with beauteous voices of cellos, guitars, and piano waft from somewhere off in the darkness outside of the slowly growing light around me. Oblong rectangles of light appear hovering in that darkness, and the circle grows to cast light on the old building holding those shapes of light. The music weaves its way between the heart-string image of a man before me, and he vanishes. My heart-strings are my own once more, but the feeling of emptiness, of despair remains, though something from within the seemingly empty recesses of my heart begins to beat.
A strong current turns me, heart and soul, to the vast darkness, looking away from the building and the light and the music (though the music seems more within me than without me now). I don’t know how I know this, but I must venture out there, to that absence of light from amongst the flickering light where I now stand. I wish I could bring one of those fireflies in the oblong windows of light from which the music seems to be flowing with me… but somehow I feel that it is not right, at least not now.
Flesh become flesh and bone within flesh and skin on flesh and heart within these and soul amongst them all. I can’t seem to move beyond the glass sidewalk, my heart beating fervently to linger on, years have past, but I have grown, and the pathway I have prayed to see is there: lit more dimly than the spotlight in which I stand now, but there nonetheless. Somewhere, amidst the music and the oblong lights, the fireflies (which have enlightened the darkest depths of a despairing soul, which I could not have done without) four years have transpired. Four years of ups and downs and all arounds. Four years of hellos. Four years of goodbyes. Four years too short. Four years gone, already behind me, I have nowhere else to turn but out into the darkness— but somehow, that heart-string image of a man is who I have become, thread after thread.
And although I am leaving this small place in time behind, I have faith in this: Fireflies bring what light they can to the world they cannot see; if they were disheartened and downcast, thinking that the little light they cast meant nothing, then the night would envelope us all; but I am so thankful for those that believe and lighten those darkest of dark times for those of us beyond the belief that that little light could make a difference— and I will come across fireflies again, and maybe not for a long length of time, perhaps some from the four-year past will come beside a world-weary traveler after a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment