| Orienting-Lent |
| Written by J. Barrie Shepherd |
|
The eastering I look for in these steadily advancing latter years lies far beyond all banners, brasses, lilies banked in resurrection rows of waxen white, will not be forceable in any way like golden-starred forsythia winter cut and warmed to yield its long stemmed foretaste leaning into spring, will probably, I fear, be ushered in by pain, the body aches of aging and that deeper hurt that moves, soul-wise, across time’s tracing on the place where passions dwell. The eastering I look for looks for me, I’m coming to suspect, suggests itself in soft, latefalling snowflakes, waves in passing with the wind through last fall’s drear, tenacious-clinging leaves along the sycamores and leaps across alarming walks and alleyways and yards, shadowing my wary tread with timelessness in shards of strangely dark, yet dazzling fragmentary light. —J. Barrie Shepherd |
