Carol

Carol, I am making sun tea on my window sill.

You'd approave of the crimson pomegrante that takes it's time and works thru the clear water all the day. this is the way i saw my life: a place of beauty and light and when i think of your home, that is what i remember. how you welcomed a small girl with chewed nails and stinky keds summer day after summer day into your home. how did you make me feel so welcome? adding me into the blessing at dinner time. (we are holding hands, the room is golden with skylight. we are singing Johnny Apple Seed. you are thanking jesus for bringing me to your home. these are blessings, you say. and i believe you. i believe you.)

Carol, the other night i had a dream i was at your table again and i woke aching for your cassarole and your love. because that is what you showed me. bringing me far out of the city to The Garden where i caught frogs and escaped sidewalks and tore through wild, lashing grasses taller than myself. where i stripped beans to their internal perfect pelllets from my teeth and just rolled them on my tongue.

K was so young then. her skin as white as the Dessitin I'd smear on her backside, then carefully pin on her diaper with the yellow duckie pins.

here is what i took away:
sitting in your living room rug leaning over the record player with Bookends in my hand. listening to how quiet a voice can be in song.
here is what you gave me:

i cannot say how much the love you showed me gave me. standing in your kitchen, the glass jar steeping sun tea on the counter behind me, i wash our dinner dishes because the sink is full and then i wash them and they are clean and the job is finished. (at my house, any job moves forward and then slides back over you, never finished. greek. tragic.) i wash the ziplock bags to use again. they dry alongside the bubble glass glasses and the green flowered plates.

I sit on the floor with my arms wrapped around my knees and watch you golden daughters run piano scales. I bury my hands into the thick orange carpet and never want to leave. The alley has smashes of bottles and its the endnof summer so I've been barefoot for days now and living in my knobby swimsuit and jean shorts.

Now, when so much of my life can be spent doubting, casting ugly motives on those who call themselves Christian and offer help, I see you as a true Christian whose love I drew in closer to and can only feel that any part of the world is more blessed by your presence of grace and beauty and that light, what is that light you hold? I am so grateful that I had you in my life, that you welcomes that little girl at your table and held her hand and blessed her with your light.