Today my mood has matched the weather – rainy, dreary, grey. I try and put it into words, make sense of it in my journal. Words help me find myself when I am lost. They allow me to harness my scattered thoughts and swirling feelings as I pin them to the penned page and invite them to slow down and rest, so I can find again my footing.
But sometimes the words don’t come. They, too, get lost in the swirl. And on those days, I often turn from prose and instead to poetry – that language of the soul which bypasses the rational way of knowing.
I wrote this when last week the rains came so heavy. It feels right to revisit again.
In Search of Flowers This week the rains came heavy from the West, and the sister creeks across the road met hands and became a river. I watched the muddy water from my windows roll over the newly-greened meadow burying everything in its flooding skirts. I thought of our neighbors, the Canada geese and the mallards; it is nesting season, and I thought of a lost generation of wings, hopes dashed like broken shells on rocks. Today the sun is out and the waters have receded. I marvel that the sycamores still stand that the green is not yet murdered. I inventory the loss and gather hope where I can, like a weeping woman gathers flowers, like a little girl in search of color in a garden of weeds. Just now a mama goose wanders slowly cross the soggy meadow, her head bobbing Is she praying for her lost loves? Is she mourning? Does she come in search of flowers? ©Annette Darity Garber
