There
may have never been a lovelier morning in the long, radiant history of this
planet than the one that greeted today. Sometime in the five o’clock hour Ellie
woke, making small animal noises in her crib. When I went to retrieve her so
she didn't wake her siblings, she leaped into my arms and curled tightly into
my neck and and shoulder, the shirt of her pajamas lifting a little to expose
her cool back against my warm palm. I thought to snuggle her back to sleep, but
she was awake, her little mind whirring like a small, sacred machine. “Des wat,
daddy.” “What?” I’d whisper. “Ho ho,” she would say, and then chuckle, a
learned, feigned burble of laughter. And five seconds later: Guess what? Julie
woke to sing to her as the boys clambered into our bed. The body longed for
sleep, but the feel of children was a blessing.
And then
the sunrise. Clouds blue and gray and rimmed in glory slowly crawled toward
orange and red across the tops of mountains, backlit by the song of God. A low,
loose cloud like a fog gathered around the base of the entire mountain range:
the valley’s fringes, the healing kanaph.
I do
love this world. And I want to be a good man.
Perfect.
ReplyDelete