Memory

brief night sit on the porch by myself.

chill air moving slowly through the dark, carrying the scent of flowers from somewhere. the moon, a waxing gibbus, commanding the sky, lighting the clouds into a painting, illuminating everything. i thought of the path we walked today on the other side of town, thought of each leaf and tree stump, each curve in the trail, each moist patch of earth, all bathed in moonlight. all of our world, surrounded by the moon.

a bird sang from a tree nearby. why do they sing at night? not simply a call, but a song.

the stars held their places in the sky.

our pond, having dried up for lack of rain, has lost its peepers to other places. we aim the leak in our hose into it, but haven't been watering the plants enough for it to fill up.

looked over our land tonight from the porch, noticed not for the first time how all trace of our trees has been cleared away, wiped off the land. they are very much gone. as our boy grows, if we stay on this land, we'll tell him about the trees that stood there; these stories will be his only memory of them. the stumps-cum-seats from my friend and the clump of trillium and trout lily, dug up from under the trees the day the machines arrived and moved to safety under our porch, also attest to the reality of the trees' existence. they were part of that forest, that miniature ecosystem. without stories, without physical evidence, do things disappear forever? do traces remain? where is their energy? i used to talk with them when they stood, sit by them, the birds lived in them; where does the energy of these interactions reside now?

my little son is sleeping beside me. i watch him, my love for him swelling inside of me, pouring, i am sure, onto and into him. i wrap my hand around his little one and notice how enormous my hand is to him; i am a giant. is this what creator is to us? a being which towers over us, can carry us, give us life and death, guide us with lessons as we need them, and who loves us uncontrollably and infinitely?