A fresh poem for my husband who is away

Lily of the Valley

Tangled among sharp nettles, amid barley prickles and darkened, dry grass lay a long-forgotten lily -- soft, brilliant, pure, touched with dew, thirsty with hope, and stained with sorrow.

He shoved his sleeve above his elbow, thrust his bare hand through the mire of thorns, grasped the lily gently between hardened, calloused fingers, and tugged at its satin-soft petals until it was free.

Long forlorn and quite forgotten, the lily was torn and tinged with brown.
Laid in a crystal vase filled with sweetened water, she was drenched with anticipation, filled with nourishment, tinted creamy pale by the sun streaming through his windowpane.

Soon blossoms cascaded down her branches. Tears welled up in his eyes. Immersed in pure joy, innocent love, and touched with fresh clarity, a song was born of her distant sorrow. It traveled for miles, floating across the sea, over mountains, hills, and valleys until, gathering speed and power from the light above, the song reached the moistened clouds, the shimmering stars, the milky host of Heaven above.

He heard it and was enraptured. Adding angelic voices and thundering echoes of heavenly instruments, all sorrow was swept from the song, leaving only delight.

The lily burst forth into searing beauty. Pure, white, soft, delicate, fragile, her moment had come. Bursting with fragrance, dampened with dew, she leaped from the soil and landed in His arms, to rest forever in peaceful surrender.

She nestled snugly upon his breast and felt the comforting pounding of His strong heart, beating only for her as for the thousands who came before.

And she was forever changed.

Are you all still there?

I didn't fall off the planet, contrary to popular belief and hideous rumor. That would require a break in the law of gravity, and gravity is one of those laws that we tend to break the least -- only astronauts, Houdini, and David Copperfield seem to have mastered that trick.

No, I have been working, scrounging for more work, and finishing the house. And yet, I have not finished The Fairy Harp! I have a solid first chapter, though. And several pages of gook after that to spruce up. It's tragic how little fiction I actually write these days. But oh well! Someone has to write all that direct mail we build our landfills on, right?

Tell me, people, what have you been writing? Doing? Praying for? Closing your eyes and wishing on a star about? Do tell!

Yours -- when all else fails and nobody passes, when nobody wins and everybody loses,

Megan Elizabeth

P.S. I miss Dan Fogelberg. So you will just have to tolerate reading more of his lyrics on my blog...

How many eyes will you sack in sorrow
Seeking to borrow some sight of your own
How many lies will you have to suffer
Until you discover there's nobody home
How many roads will you have to wander
How many dead end streets
How many dreams will you finally squander
Dodging your own defeats.
You're wishing on the moon tonight
There's not a lucky star in sight
Just wishing on the moon tonight.
[ Find more Lyrics at www.mp3lyrics.org/GZW ]
How many doors will you have to open
Desperately hoping each one's the last
How many more will you close behind you
Bitter and blind to the shadows you cast
How many fools will you have to follow
How many wayward winds
How many sins will you have to swallow
Until the truth sinks in
(That you've been)
Wishing on the moon tonight
There's not a lucky star in sight
Just wishing on the moon tonight