You Can Too

The quiet is broken only by the pinging of the steel stove as it expands from the small morning fire I am nursing awake for the day.   It is still dark night at 7:05 but the dawn is coming with its promises.  My lover and our dog both sleep deeply in our mattress, barely visible beneath the winter cover.  It snowed all day yesterday without accumulation, just blowing snow worn to nothing by the wind.  We spent the day in the hollows and lost ridges of the Appalachians, mostly on single-lane roads completely lost but knowing they would eventually spill us out on familiar ground.  As slow a day as we could make.  We picnicked in the truck beside a small mountain church, good bread, fruit, and chocolate, and walked awhile to stretch our old bones.  Our back seat was filled with children and grandchildren, making young with songs and laughter, and napping and just the joy that comes with barely being.  I just glanced up to see where dawn was, there may be an outline of it on the mountain east, up the river, but still, I must strain to have the hope of it.  Morning comes early to me and often stretches on in solitude to the point of melancholy.  But dawn is coming, the next glance up and the outline is sure—You have kept our star lit.  “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”  I did.