Indigo and Violet

Indigo and Violet

The toddler is raging, there is

more snow predicted next week

and I am unsure if I will make it

to spring. It’s not that life isn’t

beautiful, it’s that it is also so very

hard. When I was young, I was taken

with the idea that certain animals

could hide using their skin. I made

it a point to look carefully at every

green leaf for a tree snake, at every

brown branch for a stick bug, and

in every ravine filled with mud for

the possibility that I might find a

shy salamander, the kind disguised

under auburn back, keeping his

fire-red belly a secret beneath him.

But now, my long fingers, stretched

toward heaven, become invisible in

this endless flurry. I try to find the sun,

the Son, the sun, through these brooding

clouds that love to break open but never

heal. It might be time to move. Or to dig

my “happy light” out of storage, or maybe

I should paint my body in hazy stripes of

red and orange, indigo and violet, to blend

in with the promises of God while I wait,

and wait, and wait for sunshine and new

grass. For the chance to let my one-year-old

outside without hampering her down in

heavy coats and scarves and boots. I would

that she would run free, barefoot and giggling,

so that we can give Winnie the Pooh a rest and

find our own honey in the sunshine of May, the

tangle of August, and the tomatoes of July. Why,

oh soul, are you so disrupted? Hope in God. Or else

I will have to remind you again: Hope in God. The

sun will not remain hidden forever.

Cover image by Rodion Kutsaiev.