Friday, December 4, 2009

Sunrise

The morning dawns not with the sun but with the steady, dull blink of the blue alarm clock.

Your hair looks funny, he says, digging his two front teeth into an orange wedge.

They're here! he shouts when the guy who drives the carpool pulls up.

He scrambles to unwrap a chocolate kiss from the advent calendar while pushing his folder into his bag.

They run out the door yelling good-bye!

I sit with her in her room as she goes over, once, twice, three, seventy-five times, the same thing over and over each morning not like a blink but more like the sunrise, inexorable in its regularity.

When I can't look anymore, when my patience wears thin and I would rather push the day back and down back into darkness I rise and walk away from her and through the house, stepping over the trail and detritus of normalcy. The tiny playmobil sword, the errant sock in the doorway, the plastic boxers askew on the dining room table, exhausted from the bout, the air they breathe.

11 comments:

  1. It pierces my soul with beauty and sadness. Why is it that beauty and sadness go together like salt and pepper on our daily bread?

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  2. Oh, Elizabeth, this is beautiful.

    And BTW, while my husband and I did laugh and laugh and laugh on our get-away, the "nothing but marital bliss" part was a joke. That story is several book's worth of material!

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  3. Your thoughts and emotions run deep... beautiful too and heard by God.

    Peace today for you and your precious family.

    ...Lisa

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  4. You are such a good writer, Elizabeth. This piece is so delicately beautiful.

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  5. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I read. So intense, simple and deep. At sunrise I'll be thinking of you all.

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  6. That was a prose Haiku and as intense and beautiful and strong as anything I've ever read.

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  7. Oh Elizabeth.

    This is wear I lean across the coffee table and squeeze your hand because I can relate to your words and because you weave them so well.

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  8. I keep typing and then deleting.
    I don't really know what to say. Sometimes maybe there just aren't words.

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  9. It never ends, each day the same thing over and over again. Maybe we're being ground down for a reason, polished instead of ground down.

    Hang on.

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