Like Picking Up Fall Leaves

Like Picking Up Fallen Leaves

(“He told her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed from your illness.’” Mark 5:24)

She had heard the stories like picking up
fallen leaves from the lawn. She had wished for
them
and turned her face to feel the sun.
She knew the sweet fragrance of new cut hay.
She gave away every resemblance to her younger days;
she tried to remember them like sunshine before the rain.

But the day it all began, she cannot remember the date,
but she still knows the moment when her body betrayed her,
when it gave way to a disease so chronic it threatened
to become her. The walls closed in on her isolation
while she heard the accusations that she must have failed
someone along the line to carry such a persistent haze.
The day it became and this day were connected like a
seam of blood-red thread encompassing everything.

She longed to sing in the choir again, her solo voice
had torn her up and down. She wanted the voices beside her,
resonating with her own alto altogether.

But she had heard the stories, and then she heard the throng.
Was it him? Would he walk though her neighborhood?
She listened as the airborne mixture of mere humanity
floated through her window. She caught a glimpse of him
and, hope for hope, she halted, seconds waiting like a
statue coming free.

“If only” she thought. And she continued to wonder as she
felt her feet leave for the front door. She must move stealthily,
between the bodies pressing in to see him. It would be easy to
be silent
while the crowd shouted and murmured for attention.

“If only” she decided. And walked between the narrow
lanes of bodies. She moved with purpose, her fingers
tingling with possibility. Within a couple of steps,
she reached our her hand to touch just the robe along the hem.

She turned around to return home, her sickness destroyed in
that single contact, but he spoke. “Who touched me?” Before
he even spoke shoe knew she as well.

And so this daughter, on a day of grace and faith
went in peace and found a few devoted friends to share
coffee in the afternoon.
She was once wooden clogs and now is
Cinderella’s slippers.