The Whispers of God

I should be asleep...tonight's different from last night, though. Tonight I'm thinking about the gift of words - the blessing of expression.

Byron and I were listening to George Winston tonight, because I'm feeling poetic and George Winston fits me when I feel poetic...

When I heard the first few notes of the "album" entitled December, I was right back in my stark little dorm room on a mountain in Asheville, NC where I went to boarding school during my junior year of high school. Back then, my words were truly my closest companion. I had a treasured book of Emily Dickinson poems that I would read and reread.

My favorite of her poems in my little book (she wrote hundreds in total), was, not surprisingly, also the saddest to me:

"IF you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting." (Emily Dickinson)

I would listen to George Winston (as we were allowed to listen to little else) and write down my thoughts and little poems. I wish I still had all of those words on paper, although, it would probably be humorously dramatic.

I guess, I was just learning how to be alone.

And now as I've begun again to chronicle my feelings. I've realized more fully the power of expression.

Writing, for me, is an act of freedom and passion. Words are like jewels to me, and a beautiful thought is like the whispers of God reminding me that I am never alone.

Peace.