It's so quiet.
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| Just weeks after Hurricane Irma devastated Florida's SW coast, Nicole's eye passed over us on the SE coast, thankfully only a Cat. 1. My writers' group was assigned to write something tonight about the eye. |
Peace, even.
A welcome respite from the unleashed fury
only moments ago.
And yet, I know it's temporary.
The back side of the storm approaches with
unfinished business.
A trick of nature. Life's sarcastic side revealed.
And isn't it always thus?
A crisis descends upon us suddenly and we endure,
hanging on by fingernails we've bitten to the quick.
The grace is there for every hour and day
but when we fall into a fitful sleep that night ...
There's nothing left. The grace, like manna in the wilderness,
doesn't keep. And then one day --
It's done. The eye of the storm of life passes over
leaving clear skies, blue skies again,
And all is right with the world.
We dance and laugh, knowing deep down that it won't last.
But in the moment, we delight. We savor. We hope...again...
that this will last forever, knowing that it won't.
Knowing that it can't but trusting...still...the promises
of grace and strength we learned in Sunday School
When we were innocent of hurricanes,
When clouds were simply funny shapes and not the
harbingers of doom. The storms will always come.
The storms will always pass.
Everything and everyone are here on loan,
temporary joys and woes.
So little, really, is permanent, sustained, reliable.
There's God, of course.
There's you.
(c) Ellen Gillette, 2022
