The sunlight that pours in, falling over the sash like crisp, clear water, washing the walls, spilling over the coverlet and floor, refreshes like no rain has in years. I acknowledge the need for, even the longing, sometimes, for rain, but nothing comes close in rain, at certain other times, to giving me the reviving strength I find in showers of sunlight.
It’s probably inaccurate in more than just the politically correct sense to say that I love my husband like crazy, because it would imply that my affections are only similar to complete madness, and we all know I’m much closer than that in reality. While I flatter myself that I maintain a reasonably plausible façade of normalcy, everybody knows that I’m pretty nutty about my spouse. And those who know him don’t blame me.
He really is a lovable guy.
But aside from the stuff that is evident to the general public, that part about him being a thoughtful colleague, a committed and skilled teacher, a nuanced and inspired conductor of singers and instrumentalists, and all that other excellent and admirable kind of thing, he is smart and curious and kind as a person. I know that when we are together, I matter as much to him as he does to me; that he is a safe retreat from both the minor perturbations of the day and the greater dangers of the wide world when I am in need. And I have in him the great friend with whom I would rather while away the hours either in intensive work or fully at play than with anyone else on earth.
Most of all, I know he not only understands my particular brand of craziness but shares in it as well. Each day, each year, is a surprise package of a kind, and every one of them is somehow richer than all of the foregoing ones as more than the sum of their many parts. Love and admiration and respect and support are all well and good, but if they don’t have the kind of holy hilarity that life with my partner has, they can never be enough.
With that, I wish my beloved the happiest of birthdays, and many more of them yet to come, each in succession with new and astonishing delights.
There’s only one plane of existence that is guaranteed to seem perfect and right to you at all times, and that’s the one in your dreaming heart. But the place in the real world that will come closest to that kind of mythic perfection is the one where you can dwell in the center of real, constant and generous love. On the third of August, every year of my life, I get to celebrate such a love because it’s the anniversary of my parents’ marriage.
Their love for each other has withstood many tests and trials over time, but because it was genuine and down-to-earth love from the beginning, the tests and trials have tended to be more externally made and less harsh, perhaps, than they might otherwise have been. And in its best and least challenged days, it shines the brighter because it feeds and is fed by a larger love—for life, for those articles of faith and those people they hold dear—and I, as one of their offspring, get to share in that care and affection, friendship, respect and kind generosity.
This is the sort of beauty and distinction that transcends fairytale happiness and is, instead, steady and sure. Better than supposed Magic and miracles, it is so dependable that even when the sun isn’t shining quite right or the cogs of the world aren’t turning exactly as one might wish they would, it’s possible and natural to have assurance that what needs to be will return; goodness will prevail, and we will all get back to the constant and comforting business of loving and being loved by one another. It’s a potent blend of companionship and concern and hope that aren’t dependent on spells and manipulations but reside in the everyday promise, and every third of August I get to celebrate it anew because my parents taught me what this kind of love can be.
Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad.
Love always makes us a little nutty, and that’s not a complaint.
After all, it’s the only explanation for how I’ve managed to be so loved all of my life!
One could do a whole lot worse than beginning and ending with love.
I Sing for Love
I sing for love of singing, For music, sweet and strong
That carries me from joy to joy, Amending every wrong—
To hear clear voices ringing Across the dawn of day
Makes purest gold, without alloy, My every waking way—
As day approaches evening, A lullaby, at last,
Gives night delight, believing As I do that in the vast—
Infinite—constellation Of voices in the night,
I will find deep communion With the song that sets me right—
I sing for love of singing, For in the choir’s heart
Is all the song of blessing That I longed for from the start.
To my beloved husband with great love and affection on our eighteenth anniversary: you continue to surprise me, all of these years after your initial unexpected appearance as the love of my life!
Snowing Amethysts
At evening, summertime holds breathless sway
When even crickets wait before they’ll sing,
And birds to roost go silent; everything
Takes pause because the lengthy heat of day
Has drawn a shawl of stillness down to lawn
And flowerbed and hedges, ’til a breath—
So shallow it could scarcely ward off death—
Is difficult to breathe ’til the break’s gone,
Until the night resumes its stealthy crawl,
Exhaling with a stirring wind that flies
Up, stirring blossoms upward to the skies,
Their petals dropping, ash-like, down the wall,
Crape-myrtle petals drifting down below
In waves of amethyst, a summer snow.
Hours into Seasons
There’s a sweetness in the morning when the sun has yet to rise
And the blooms lie, still unopened, under sleeping butterflies;
When the stars still wink and glimmer, while the frogs yet softly sing—
There’s a sweetness in the morning that is like the breath of Spring.
There’s a graciousness at midday when, amid the racing streams,
All arise and put in motion yesterday’s profoundest dreams;
When the past its chains has loosened on the race of all alive,
That in joyful forward motion we, like Summer, grow and thrive.
There’s a calm amid the evening when the birds come to the trees’
Respite from the day of flying, echoed by our evening ease;
When the cares of noon have lessened as the dusk swept into place—
There’s a calm amid the evening, peaceful as the Autumn’s grace.
There’s a beauty to the nighttime, glorious and peaceful bliss,
Treasured for the kind renewal of the souls that rest in this
Cradling darkness and this languor, in this place of mending rest
That, like Winter’s dormant healing, lets us wake refreshed and blessed.
I would take these hours’ presents as my guide through seasons long,
Through a lifelong path that’s pleasant as a choir’s finest song;
I would be a seasoned traveler, happy above everything,
If my song could last forever,
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.
What Light
What gleaming and pellucid light is this
That dances from the darkness into view,
As gently kind and tender as a kiss,
Drawing the violet warmth out of the blue—
What is this gracious, guiding, welcome light
That, numinous, its blessing shines on me
And bids me then, so warmed and kindled bright,
In turn to shine? ‘Tis Hospitality.
What, then, the lantern lighted as we part
To guide and keep us as we wander on,
No longer cold and dark as at the start,
Though time find us all yet asunder, gone—
What is the lamp that makes each soul a sun
And lights the path to gather us anew
From ends of earth, that beckons everyone
Back home? It’s Love that lights the whole way through.
There’s comfort in the midst of darkest night
Where Love and Hospitality alight.
Art-Colored Glasses 