Where your greatest fear
was losing an elephant,
pink and gray and stuffed,
that first friend and all the
memories
that you carry with you, stitched
and patched, faded and well-worn,
into this grown-up world of today,
bearing with you, my old friend, love.
I think the epitome of loneliness
is God Himself,
a deity alone when the earth was
without form, and void,
and darkness ruled, so lonely as to
create, first,
seeking himself, light and dark,
morning and evening,
dry land and the stars, plants and
animals, signs and seasons,
days and years, a millennium
beginning, and it was good,
but not enough, lonely still,
something missing, amiss
amidst the beauty of this new art,
so He next created
the birds and fish, fruitful and
multiplying,
livestock and crawling things and
all animals
of the earth, and it was good, yet,
still incomplete,
lacking something, Himself,
perhaps, someone like him
for company, to enjoy time with,
someone to care for
in His loneliness, and theirs,
something to complete Him
as the only one of His kind, this
one deity alone
in the expanse called heaven, and
so He created again,
in his own image, one from the
other … and it was good.
These creations adorned His walls
or were placed on the mantle
above His fireplace, stuck onto a
shelf in His den,
slid between two others, gazed upon
or read again,
performed over and over, emoting joy
and sadness,
this creating of dreams and fictions
brought to life,
bringing Him out from his loneliness, creating, thus, us.
The Summer Solstice has come and
gone
as we approach now the Autumn
months,
that longest daylight turning early
to night
and the morning sleeping in under its
covers
of darkness pulled tight, tucked
under its chin,
quiescent in the lengthening of
time slowed down;
and Winter’s Solstice following
close upon us.
And so it is with our lives, our
own Summer
Solstice behind us and the approach
of Autumn,
resting in the lengthening of our lives, slowed down.
a blessing, so people say, and
perhaps
it is, sometimes, this time spent
alone, in silence mostly, walking,
the sun warm on my face, a clear
stream flowing nearby, a soft
burble
of water moving toward the lake,
the scent of pine and fir, early
Christmas,
and I find myself, thus, sorting
out my life,
the little pleasures of being here,
now,
the pain, even, of the past
returning;
but other times, this solitude
turns
to loneliness, a longing to share
the sunshine and clear stream, pine
and fir,
sharing myself, even, with another
person:
solitude seeking out someone to
share
this blessing with, twice blessed.
