After Now

Why is it that I find your beauty

now, so enticing?

Why now, and not before?

Why is it that you were a mere commonality before,

but now, you are gloriously enrapturing,

heart-breaking and heart-warming

Have my eyes changed?

Have you changed?

Have you transformed from a single glance

to a forever – yet ever to short -of a gaze?

Or is it me?

***

There is a painting of a ship at sea

on my office wall

I have seen it everyday for as long as I can remember

but now, after all these years

do I finally realized how beautiful it is.

I finally appreciate it.

Why now, and not before?

I have read countless books about

sailors

boats

the sea

explorers and whalers

I have learned countless history lessons about events with sailors and boats

I have seen countless movies about the sea

I have read personal accounts concerning explorers and whalers

I have ridden the open waves with no land in sight

I have stared into that sinister, powerful, murky depth

and I have stared into those mystical, lapping, crashing ocean waves

In every sense I’ve been in that painting

but until now, it was just a painting,

but after now, it has its own life

own story

own tears to cry

own cheers to shout

own dead to bury

own lips to smile

own love to find

After now, it is not just something to look at

but something to be a part of

Why now, and not before

do I love you?

Because I finally understand you

and I know that I never truly can either

No Earthly Power

It is more powerful than Pharoah’s soldiers

It is more powerful than the false god worship of Baal

It is more powerful than the Roman’s aqueducts

It is more powerful than European conquests’ vessels

It is more powerful than the Hover Dam

It is more powerful than anything in or yet to be in the universe

1 Hydrogen

and 2 Oxygen

produces

water and life as we know it.

I learned about elements and the Periodic Table in Chemistry,

but this. . .

This was something new entirely,

this is power unlike anything I have ever seen felt before.

With the raging roar vibrating in my ears and to my very core,

I think know no earthly power could create such a monstrous force,

no matter what the scientists say.

No earthly power,

my God’s power.

He, and he alone,

created the molecules to forge such a force.

But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being.

Romans 1:20 (MSG)

 

Niagara Falls on a recent vacation

 

 

In the Water

In the water

Out of the water

In the water

Out of the water

Haven’t moved an inch

But my thoughts

Of course they have.

***

The footprints in the sand behind me

mean something

but so many metaphors can be said.

How footprints wash away,

How you leave an imprint

on rocks-turned-sand hundreds of years old

How the sand turns a different color when you step on it

How the water washes up sand and then takes it back out again.

***

So many metaphors,

I’ll just stay with,

standing in the water

now I’m not

standing in the water

now I’m not.

The Water Falls

Everything is perfect

Everything is fine

Everything is lovely

The wind is softly blowing

The water is cooling

The birds are quietly chirping

The river I’m wading through

is not gushing

or heavy current

Just peaceful

But without notice

there is a drop-off

Rapids appear

The water that was once calm

rushes and spills downward

Churning

The water falls

But once the water reaches the bottom

It is stirred, but now beings to sooth

As if nothing ever happened

Sometimes our lives are like this

Everything is perfect

Everything is fine

Everything is lovely

and then something huge changes in our lives

Our reality begins to toss and turn

and we start to get mixed up which way is up

and swim the wrong direction

Then we hit the water

and have a sense of clarity

We have a new understanding

and a hard learned life lesson

But nothing truly changes

The water streams along

and the rapids begin to go unnoticed

and soon forgotten

until the next rapids come.

A picture taken on my recent vacation

I Thought it was Coming Down

I thought the water was coming down, when it was really coming up. I carried my umbrella with me, but had a few drops to trick me that the water was coming from above.

I now look back and remember I couldn’t feel the water surrounding me at that time. It just felt like it had always been there. Hard to walk through. The more I walked the deeper it went. But that’s the way the ocean works, I guess.

I was protecting against the wrong thing, and never realized how much damage was being done to me. You’re always told to keep watch of the unknown – the above – never what is below you. What you wade through your whole life, and never know the difference of what air feels like. I walk farther and farther, deeper and deeper.

The water, the ocean, the sea is now at nose level and I still never notice, just holding my umbrella. I live life against the few raindrops, not the ocean over whelming me. Protecting against the wrong things, and never noticing.

I drown. I drown because I thought the water was coming down, when it was really coming up.

---

Idea and image found at https://keskescreativewriting.wordpress.com/