Like Fairy Tales

 

Like Fairy Tales

(“But we should be glad and celebrate! Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found.” Luke 15:32)

It’s like fairy tales with the ending that fixes everything,
like the carousels that promise gold while mixing horses
and unicorns and princesses and cardboard tickets.
It’s like the neighbor next door playing their music too loud,
like the ravens who rule from thirty feet high then soar toward
your head. You are not allowed so close to their home.

It’s like champagne before the wedding,
back pain after mending the treehouse for the grandkids.
It’s twirling like a top,

curling your toes when the raindrops break the summer heat.

It’s the interruption during the sermon,
the baby sticking his tongue out at the
man behind him,
and the man laughing and sticking his tongue out
too.
It’s the interruption during communion,
a paper airplane dive-bombing from the balcony,
and a note inside that makes her parents want to hide
but makes a teen boy blush when the wine is served.

It is every distraction, every absurd note played without
rehearsal.
It is every expansion, every blue note that dares to play
between the half steps decreed by convention. It is
every transaction that leaves less pocket money
but more time to love how funny random cloudbursts
feel on our skin.

It is each moment, another second of
trumpets and strings, caterpillars with wings,
exiting and entering; it is always (after all)
a moment of new beginnings.