A Still Life…A Life Still

If you don’t stand for something, my father used to wryly intone, you’ll fall for anything.

* 

This Christmas, I am weaving a blanket for my father’s legs. 

For his long legs that walked to work (past the peony bushes, through the gate, while I watched from the back door, small hands waving). 

Legs that paced the classroom while the scholar taught, pausing, praising an idea with full-bodied exclamation.

Legs that pulled my young body through the swimming pool like a raft parting still waters.

Legs that traveled the continents, bent to indulge the neighbor’s dog, stood firm in fields of conflict.

Legs that now, sooner with each day, are retiring from their labor.  They are tucking in, falling asleep, turning out the lights, shutting down.

As I weave, each thread on the loom holds a memory of this pilgrim life.  Each shuttle passes through them as a prayer of love and letting go.

This, then, is my Christmas wish: 

to bless these legs that touched the earth,

that ran the good race;

that stood for something,

and fell, at last, for love alone.

                                                                                                             -susan

~ by Stephanie on 12/22/2009.

Posted in Uncategorized