Like Pollen

Last evening. I saw the truth. No words. Just feelings. Just behaviors. But big enough for me to recognize it.

I knew, after my husband left, that I could have said, “I want to go too,” but I was involved in putting a poem together. I didn’t want to stop doing what I was doing.

Down the road he went. It was too late. And I still had a few weeds to pull in the poem.

But later, I saw it. My feelings and behavior made it undeniable.

What I remember this morning is the taste of my feelings. Like pollen falling, yellow, fine and powdery.

It did not make me happy or sad. It was familiar. I was aware.

When he returned home three hours later from helping a friend process bee honey, I was involved in something else. After supper, he invited me to go with him to a neighbor’s. This time I declined because I was in the midst of cleaning the kitchen.

That’s how it is sometimes. I am numb, asleep, unaware of when God is in my presence, when I am invited to go be with others and with Him, when He is knocking on the door. Sometimes I’m just too tired at the end of the day to open the door. (Hard to admit.)

Such is the human condition.

However, this morning I looked out the window toward the mountain, and there stood a shiny black crow atop the stump in our yard. But what I saw was no ugly stump. In fact, it somehow was beautiful. I stood at the window and memorized the moment and the shape of the confident crow proclaiming a truth to the world without sounding a caw.

If I didn’t have a blog, I might never have told a soul or written this down. That’s how it is sometimes.

I miss many opportunities. Don’t we all? But now and then, I catch how God is fully alive and keeps giving to me. His gifts come in the form of a dog’s guttural yowling, fat blackberries, round bales of hay in a field, someone smiling while holding the door open for me.

Today, I’m alert and watching with my heart. That’s just how it is sometimes.

Blessings,

Pat Durmon

P.S. You are invited to share comments below the photo of the stump. (I wish the crow was still there for you.)

What's left of the dead sycamore tree in our front yard, near Norfork, Arkansas. Photo taken by Pat Durmon, June 2017.