may my blood find the courage to flow again. may the earth again rise shaped by warm, tender hands. may we lay in cool grasses telling our stories, while children run laughing in circles around us.
(thank you, jeff) LAUGHING IN CIRCLES We circled for a meeting of grown-ups on the patio. Aidan, four years old, with rubber ball, markers, pad of paper had all the space around us for his play. First thing he did: he dragged a folding chair across the stones and wedged it among ours. A place for him (he had no intention, of course, to sit there). Bounced his ball a while, then tiptoed over, handed it to each of us in turn, clockwise, for us to toss and him to chase, like a dog but silent, so patient as we talked our grown-up talk. Then belly-down he drew pictures, rolled them, laid one under each chair like a snowflake. Oh, do not forget them! Oh, do not forget them, be they thirteen or seven, four or one. You be the loom, the walls, the ground. They are the very thread of Spirit, and no one has to teach them how to weave, or when, or why. Chris Weaver Swannanoa, North Carolina, USA
