awake early

I light candles in the house in the days before winter. Outside, it is damp and cool. Here, inside, it is warm. There is red and green and gold.

I talk with friends on a Monday evening. The world is speeding by, and many who we love are far away. Here, tonight, we are together. I laugh and sprawl on the couch, my feet tucked into fuzzy new birthday slippers. In the city, people huddle in doorways, their old shoes wet from the street. Sometimes they laugh, but it is not the same.

The week after the shelter closes, I wake an hour early on my accustomed morning, still ready to help.

I could pour my heart into acts of kindness every morning, and still not make a dent in this. All of the gratitutde I feel for my comfort and security does not change a thing. Still, I wake, and think on it. I pray and work and give and appreciate. Feet tucked into fuzzy slippers, I try to sort it out.

Sometimes, the gap between this world of couch and candles and that world of damp shoes and doorways seems hopelessly vast. Some days, I think it's barely there: a stroke of fate, a whim of random placement, a handspan bridged by love.

And so I I wake and work and think and pray, here in this house in the days before winter.

question: how do you see the gap?

mompoet - up early, and warm