The Invisible City of Lost Pieces and Gathered Light

We have been living in some dark places of late. The moonlight blown out by some stronger force of strength, the sun pounded to oblivion by a hand passing over our lives.

In this darkness I find myself in bits around the house. Walking up the stairs I may stumble upon an arm. Fingers are left in the refrigerator crisper. Ears sit on windowsills listening to the birds outside. I try to gather what I can find. I try to reassemble. But they all fall off again when I hear some latest medical news, when Willa is feeling ill from chemo, when I think about how much time we all have left.

And yet…

I find other things too.

I find rays of light in the flowerpots. I find glimmers of sun off water in the bathtub. I find beams sneaking under doors, around objects, flashing in corners of rooms, illuminating good things that stubbornly exist. Like Willa’s laugh, her shocking good humor, her signing “I love you” at the breakfast table unexpectedly. Then the room cracks open and light pours in like tidal waves. Waves and waves of sun filling the coffee cups, drenching our skin, blinding all sadness.

I squirrel it away. A little goes in the kitchen drawer. Some gets shoved into deep pockets. I eat a little. So that now in the places where something falls off a phantom appendage grows, born of light, determined to balance the dark.

And that’s what Willa does.

And that’s how it goes.