Writing Towards Debt

Sometimes I wonder if my writing-life means anything significant, if it's okay that I want to do this, indeed that I DO it on a regular basis. It can feel selfish, this tucking away, this departure from daily tasks and other people to put words down, to set them like goblets, silver, china on a table that— at least temporarily— only I see, feel the wood and smell the fragrance of it.

Then (thank God... or thank you, God) I read something like this from John Leax's Grace is Where I Live...

...I find myself wondering how to pay that debt of gratitude I felt and feel for my life. I think I must begin where I am— sitting in my garden study— setting down these words.... I offer in thanksgiving and praise these nouns: painted lady, red admiral, tiger swallowtail, mourning cloak, cabbage white, monarch.

Golden

We climb high— past sheer, chalky white rocks— brush by wild fennel and what look like dandelions on dianthus stems. The air is dry, feels thin as we ascend. Up and up and up, above the city and the blue, blue sea.

Sun is pure and hot, blazes, reflects from golden steeple that guides us ever upward. If heaven is somewhere, maybe it is here.

Hushed, we pass over an old wooden drawbridge, into the coolness of marble, red and ivory. Into the artistic order of fine mosaic on floor and wall and ceiling. Golden light from windows drifts silken over gold laid long ago, overhead— intricate worship of You, the finest Gold given to our poor hearts.

Finest gold that leaves us without words, mouths open, awed... tasting anise sweet, strong, wild.


Golden Ceiling in Marseilles' Notre Dame, by L.L. Barkat.