Ah, Love, Let Us Be True
Winter settles in, a quieting of the scene. Days stretch on without disturbance, only the weather to contend with, people miserable and occupied as they bustle from place to place: “It might as well be evening when you wake, dark as it is! Couldn’t let up for a day, could it now? Miserable out there, truly shite!” Shaking the rain from our jackets, burying our heads against the wind, we move along our way.
Storms blow in and last for days, the wind whipping at the trees, blustering over and around our little house. Some days when we wake the streets are flooded, water rushing quickly to the sea. In some towns the rains feed the rivers to rise dark and swollen, flooding the banks, every year the same. Yet we are safe here, sheltered from the storm. Warmly we sleep near the fire, content to rest. The nights are long and with the darkness comes peace. Nature’s roar provides reason for respite, should one pause long enough to listen. In the warmth of each other’s company, by the light of the fire, we steadily seek what so hungrily is sought.
Each to his own. By the scratch of a pen in the slow passing of night, on the pressing of keys whose pitch in searching grows fevered and stops, pauses, shimmers in the light; in the solemn meditation that hums from the great mountains of Asia, every morning the same, the monks in their temples as they open the day. We also seek, in our own way. Constant be the footsteps that tread the path to the light. Quiet dost the heart so rage. Carefully we step on the mossy ground in our climb up the mountain, through the tall thin forest of pines that dance and rage in the wind, creaking in the moonlight, threatening to break.
Yet the forest is old, it withstands the weather. And the crashing of waves upon the shore takes its toll before rolling back to the deep. In the laying of hands and in the solace of nature, so often is it found, so surely do we keep.