March 2006: Waiting (cont.)

Today we have snow . . . deep, lush, wet snow clinging to every twig, pasting the stop signs blank.

And so we wait, all of us, in the white stillness.

Spring will come. Few pronouncements are more certain, even more trite than that one. And yet the knowledge that it is certain lifts my heart with sudden gratitude. Even in the waiting.

Death will come, too. That is equally certain. In this place beyond hope, beyond love, beyond faith where I wait in the darkness shall I learn gratitude even for death?