How Life Beats

There are secrets the morning keeps, keeps close to its beating, its bearing.

The animals know, they hear them, the secrets, carried off, away, inside the early air, or within the frost, those icy blades melting, dripping into the ground.

The little ones pause and whisper to themselves, to each other, they rustle and run, they collect and dig, all the while watching, waiting, as fall goes quiet, gets colder, dims to a darkness almost unbearable.

Almost.

The old barn creaks, sinks deeper and deeper, rooted, sturdy, stubborn, not going anywhere.

The morning is alive, subtly, exquisitely; it swells as the sun comes up; it dances and sways with the filtered shadows, marking territory, ticking away our soft gray time.

The morning knows what we sometimes fail to recognize. How we too surely sink deeper into life, into the abyss everlasting, while our colors turn, and our bark grows thick. How often, instead of seeing, we quietly wonder if this is it.

How life beats and how we bear it.

Each day swallowed, swallows us too.

There are secrets the morning keeps.

One of them is fortitude. The other is resilience.

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