I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
I had no idea what to do, so I did nothing.
Still, the days passed, and there was another sunrise, a ball of red-orange casting a spell of yellow softness onto the white snow, but only for a short time.
The hours pass with little fanfare, until dusk, until a strip of the brightest pink opens the clouds, swallows them up, and draws the curtain of darkness onto the night as my eyes close.
I am afraid of what I cannot see.
We were not expecting to be more of what we have already been. We didn’t know, though, that we would become less.
This winter season has seemed endless. One more day of short-stepping my way across the many-times-frozen expanse of the driveway, crunching along the top layer of compacted ice and snow to tend to my chickens, who attempt to venture only a few feet outside the run on most days.
The season of angst, too, has carried on. And that’s how it is.
We are circus freaks or an animal parade, embattled, defeated, yet still called to continue. I guess we’re not done yet.
Our eyes are open, but we can’t see.
The magnolia tree is budding out with the first hope of spring; I noticed it yesterday through the still-frosted living room window. It’s true: this season will yield to the next. The chickens will begin laying again, prolifically, and the baby chicks will arrive at the farm.
We don’t know what you have been through. We don’t know what has broken you. We don’t know how to uncover what’s real.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. I hope, with all that’s inside of me, that you can hear me.