In Iowa I learned that snow angels turn green when Spring begins to creep under the cold.
I was on my way to school and this, this eye gouging green grabbed at my face. Yes, I was a kid and No, I didn't think like that. I did feel it, though. It might have been the angle of the morning sun hitting the slope of the yard. It is also possible that color deprivation caused my visual cortex to scream at this genesis of Spring color. I don't know the reason. I do remember the green. But that is not all.
When images of afflictions placed upon the tardy loosed my eyes from the baby grass, I proceeded on the half block to school. Looking back, over my shoulder, I abandoned attendance once again. From several yards away, virescent radiation outlined a shape that had once been a snow angel. An angel that I had made. I was stunned by the emerald beauty but realized that I did not do the making. Oh, yes, a month earlier I had laid down and flailed arms and legs and got up with giggles. But I didn't make the beauty in the moment of its beholding. Something bigger made that.
It melted in little ripples of nausea as the tardy bell began to ring. For 50 years it lay hidden. Then, about a year ago, I walked around the building that once was my elementary school. Very little had changed. Too much of what once was play ground had grown a black crusty shell of parking spaces. Some flowering bushes and a few trees had graduated and gone on, but other than that, I recognized so much that I was overcome. A flood of sliver memories. Sliver, not silver. You know, it is just a sliver of a window on a nano second in a play ground...
Looking over where the soft ball field use to be, beyond to the corner where I stood road guard, and a little further, catty-corner across the street, I saw the sloping yard. The fluorescent angel flew back into my tattooed memory of Spring Green. I stood there and wept for joy, thankful that Father keeps His glory moments from eroding in the gray matter of human clay.
I was going to talk about why we face front in the Winter, but my angel caught my eye.
See you UP the road.
I was on my way to school and this, this eye gouging green grabbed at my face. Yes, I was a kid and No, I didn't think like that. I did feel it, though. It might have been the angle of the morning sun hitting the slope of the yard. It is also possible that color deprivation caused my visual cortex to scream at this genesis of Spring color. I don't know the reason. I do remember the green. But that is not all.
When images of afflictions placed upon the tardy loosed my eyes from the baby grass, I proceeded on the half block to school. Looking back, over my shoulder, I abandoned attendance once again. From several yards away, virescent radiation outlined a shape that had once been a snow angel. An angel that I had made. I was stunned by the emerald beauty but realized that I did not do the making. Oh, yes, a month earlier I had laid down and flailed arms and legs and got up with giggles. But I didn't make the beauty in the moment of its beholding. Something bigger made that.
It melted in little ripples of nausea as the tardy bell began to ring. For 50 years it lay hidden. Then, about a year ago, I walked around the building that once was my elementary school. Very little had changed. Too much of what once was play ground had grown a black crusty shell of parking spaces. Some flowering bushes and a few trees had graduated and gone on, but other than that, I recognized so much that I was overcome. A flood of sliver memories. Sliver, not silver. You know, it is just a sliver of a window on a nano second in a play ground...
Looking over where the soft ball field use to be, beyond to the corner where I stood road guard, and a little further, catty-corner across the street, I saw the sloping yard. The fluorescent angel flew back into my tattooed memory of Spring Green. I stood there and wept for joy, thankful that Father keeps His glory moments from eroding in the gray matter of human clay.
I was going to talk about why we face front in the Winter, but my angel caught my eye.
See you UP the road.
3 comments:
Awesome writing! Welcome to the land of Blog!
Agreed. Beautiful writing. And welcome!
Stopping by via Janie's blog.
Keep up the good work!
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