Sick Day

What does one write on a bleary-eyed day
     when the wet sky is falling in pieces of grey
     to efface the still-beautiful golden of Fall
     and remind who it was
          made green leaves turn away?

How does one smile when all Time must appall
     so that hours are minutes and minutes are years
     in which everything laughing as well makes you cry
     till your eyes are both bleary
          with undeclared tears?

Why must the blood in these mad veins run dry,
     the liquid turn powder, the dust become air,
     the Life become Death, in a moment made stale,
     and Who makes it “Life”
          and Who calls it “fair”?

O, Life, the first product bound never to fail,
      invention of Promise, perpetuate Light–
     Who can resist you, detain you, undo you,
     But Who did invent you,
         Ex nihilo, bright?

I’m not terribly pleased with that last stanza, but as I wasn’t intending to write any verse at all, it shows some promise.  I really only sat down to ponder what one might write when sitting home alone all day with a cold?  I have had chicken noodle soup aplenty to cheer my soul, and have read a good deal today, but to be stuck at home is not fun today.  Sadly, yesterday afternoon as this cold began its stealthy stalking within me, my car Sherrie also went out of commission.  Unknown mechanical issues, and I was forced to have her towed to a garage in Collegedale which has yet to call me with the diagnosis.  So I truly am stuck in the old apartment, with an old quilt and some old books and movies, and a very old dilemma: how to spend the sick day at home.

I remember an episode of Reading Rainbow in which LeVar Burton was stuck at home during a rainy day, having planned to spend the day outside.  And so he sat by a large window with (probably fake) raindrops dribbling on the glass, and read a book whose title was something like “And the Rain Came to Kapiti Plain.”  How well I remember it.  But it’s not raining just now, so I’ll set that memory aside.

I’m not sure why I’m comforted even by the simple act of writing just now, but it certainly is true.  I haven’t really got anything to say, and probably shouldn’t prevail upon your time by asking you to read aimless thoughts…wasteful, really.  But the Lord bless you for wasting your time in sympathy for a sick friend (smile). 

I know!  Since I’m writing, I might as well be writing some thoughts for the Precept study…

A little writing music…