For Andy

To Andy, on the week of our 9th wedding anniversary…for loving me like no one else can. You continue to be the greatest gift to me. Let’s grow old (and crotchety), together.

Like Falling Asleep

By: Courtney T. Beck

I tried to write about love once

but the words wouldn’t come

in any elaborate way.

So I considered my mother

who traced her finger

around my ear and

through my hair

as I fell fast asleep

while she read

by the light.

Now, in this season, I consider

You.  Who shows me love

by the way that I rest

when I’m with you.

We rise tired these days.

Pushing back sleep to

push on with the work.

We learn to die to

a certain vision of things

so we might rise to

something warmer and

more inviting.

Love

it turns out,

is not so easy to come by.

Most days it’s throwing

mud and seeds and water

onto a table

that may or

may not have access to

the sun; whose

beams must shoot through

the necessary hole

we attempt to keep open

in the roof overhead.

But sometimes, a definite

miracle unveils a sure clearing

that appears in spite of

the mud that’s now pooled

below the table, beneath

the hole in our roof.

It’s a space that’s familiar,

from a younger season,

when there was no roof

that needed tending.

From a time when the skies

held our hearts,

lightly, like clouds that

could not be captured.

Soft feet step

into a new space

filled with light. And soon

the sun and mud and clouds and soil

give way to a mother’s finger

tracing over our faces.

And we fall fast asleep

while she reads

by the light.