Redemption

 

December gardens are cold and wet as the Pacific surf,

Limp as seaweed strewn across channels of rain draining into a larger sea.

Tomato plant pride, after weeks boisterous with green and laden with red, lie limp beside other pale stems, now just memories of a summer’s worth of peppers, eggplant, and squash as big as footballs.

Time deferred is time lost in a garden.

There is no hold that can be placed on growing things, no pause or backspace on the riches of seasons.

The sun, save for that one Elijah moment, moves with persistent passion in a horizon arc, our Earthship harnessed to giant tresses circling it in a pedantic yet predicable cycle of moody encounters: now warm, now cool, with now and again Goldilocks moments of perfection.

Fall rain washes the air and slakes the thirst of soil and trees. I hear the old horse coughing out the dry dust of summer and breathing in the night air, humid with life.

Winter rain plumps moss like green pillows lining sleeping logs and etching waving limbs so that slender grey-brown bark is festooned with winter-green, and further laced with drops that catch moonlight and cast a silver sheen.

We live in this moment, in this promise of redemption, in this seasonal shift.

Renewal of water-stores and bone-rest, foundational in their primacy, gracefully prepares the way for the resilience of spring and abundance of summer. But now, now is this essential moment.

Winter skies clarify star vision. There is no sky gazing like winter sky gazing where stars strum and throb above us like platinum plums, and moon beams form Lazarus ladders linking heaven and earth.

The horses and I watch the night grow large and light and through half-lids I see angels dance holding in their cupped hands the moment of Birth.

The tiny Appaloosa beats a soft rhythm with her small hooves. The old buckskin nods and snorts and my two gentle giants gaze skyward high and long. I hear the gelding’s airy whicker, the long sigh of the mare, and a stirring breeze in the tall trees.

Together we touch this moment, tasting snow sifting over us like a clean blanket from heaven.

Redemption is born.

 

Merry Christmas from Faith & Vincent