Creator


Autumn evening, lying on the grass,
The distance between me and God
is miles.
Miles and miles of air, wind, clouds,
atmosphere,
and beyond that, miles and miles of
galaxies and stars,
mind-bendingly enormous
expansive and complex;
worlds without number.
I know I am small then.
Me, this blanket, the grass under me,
my baby's feet propped over my stomach,
her fingers in my hair.
The leaves in the trees are falling,
tiny drops of orange spinning downward
on spirals of wind.
And my baby wants to gather each one in a pile between us.
Tiny, tiny leaves
One at a time.
The sky is gray today
and I can't see those stars at all.
Beyond the heaviness in the air,
there is so much I want to touch;
to fly between; my fingers trailing over nebulas.
I want to see the handiwork of God
laid out before me in the farthest reaches of forever.
But whether I look out, or in, or up, or down;
tiny leaves in my palm,
my baby's galaxy-like eyes,
or falling now, a mist of rain,
my soul cannot fandom the vastness of it all
nor dream of anything less.
Awe.
Endless cycles of life, endless depths and heights.
My voice traveling the distance of a multitude of lifetimes
to a God who sees and hears
and answers now.
Me, infinitely His,
Forever.
The capacity to create worlds without numbers
an ember in my heart.
Eternity stamped upon me with a permanent mark.
The things of space and time brought to this place
this lawn, this old house
this baby,
these leaves,
His, though I sin.
His, though I fail.
His when I am majestically beautiful and good.
Though I die.
Though I live.
God, my Savior
reaching out, down, down
through galaxies and stars,
through the atmosphere and wind
past clouds and air
to me.
One leaf. One test. One lifetime.
Plucked from decent, spiraling toward death,
saved.
By the Creator of it all.
Variable Stars in a Distant Spiral Galaxy
Variable Stars in a Distant Spiral Galaxy, NASA on the Commons