The Date is Wider Today

The Date is Wider Today

(“You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.” Hebrews 10:6)

The date is wider today; do you feel it.?
The air is fuller just now; can you know it?
We could have ridden all afternoon on the offshore
breezes the cooled the summer sun.
We could have spoken all evening of the
ways of children who haven’t learned our foolish
myths and rituals.
The magical sound of water on rocks reaches us here
above the river a quarter mile away. The playful sound
of children’s voices freeze-tagging each other in the
front yard makes the evening open up like the entrance
of a princess who giggles.
The boys play H.O.R.S.E. sending the basketball through
the summer air for hours at a time.
And not once did any of us stop to ask
why we deserve these unicorn moments. We live in
so many dimensions at once it is impossible to discount
a simple encounter with someone,
battling cancer,
humbled in body,
and a voice lower than he once possessed. It is simply
a question without an answer. And so, we hug,
and hope,
and pray the days will stay wider as the road
winds before him unknown.

I’d rearrange so many things if I could convince anyone
to give me a chance. But time moves on like a runaway
train
while we, curious, wonder how to begin again.
Tonight the aroma from neighborhood grills will fill
the dinner hour. We will stop, if we could, and give thanks
for air so full of summer incense and children’s games of pretend.