vitalwholeness

The Monday after Easter I walk the snowy stillness of a path beside the river, the tracks revealing only a solitary two-legged creature and an assemblage of deer preceding me since snowfall. There is not a stick of wind and the birds of spring have the sound of betrayal in their calls, the falling temperatures having disrupted all expectations.

I pause on the return leg and place my gloved hands on the sheer cliff, the rock formed billions of years before me. It is crumbling slowly, as all things do, but its ancient face holds a big story, bigger than my own. I listen. It says, “What is your hurry?”

And then back to my little shelter, the warmth, stretching cat and hot coffee.  J.S. Bach is playing in the background, Sheep Shall Safely Graze. My mind floats to Robert Frost, his own winter walking, and the verse that always haunts, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.