the light in the dark

This pic was taken around 5:45 am as Colby & the kids got ready to head to Grandpa Don's for pancakes and then off to float the Weber River.
Yesterday didn't go as planned.  And as you might know Kilo, my dog was hit by a passing car at the end of my street & killed.

Tragically one of us slipped away.


You can't enjoy coming home without leaving.
You can't love without losing.
You learn to trust again with trials.

I have really great people in my life.

The following photos are a collection of photos from last years float. It was what I was doing when Colby called me downstairs to tell me Kilo had been hit by a car, that he thought his back was broken but he was still alive, and needed a vet now. 

And I could go on about the sad parts. About standing alone at the vets. About digging my own dogs grave in my garden.  But what I woke to this morning is closer to gratitude than pity. Gratitude for my friends & family.  Gratitude for the short but shared life of a dog. Gratitude for a man who was willing to drop everything to remind me the lesson another man once taught me: one foot in front of the other is how you climb from the bottom of holes to the tops of mountains.  

Don't get me wrong SAD is a very small word doing a very big job today for me. 

"Oh, but I hear footsteps through the darkness the sound of someone coming"   mlb

The Sun Will Rise

Oh- but I hear footsteps through the darkness.

The sound of someone coming,

Without sight I can only guess what might be.

Yet within the hours contained here

The sun will rise,

A dripping ball of radiant warmth

Fist casting out the black blankets,

Then the gray,

Then spreading out light like honey

Across the dirty ground

And over the many torn edges.

Through the dim passages and under blue covers

Comes a backwards moon,

 Setting in light

Grasses left empty

Of the last of yesterday’s pink good-bye

Return to simple blades of green.

Clouds fade to white

The soft quiet rhythm of time passing.

A pause, with a thousand souls standing,

Waiting for grace,

Yet in hours contained here the sun will rise,

Footsteps will fade,

And continue,

With imaginary possibilities

Far in the corner of a mountainous valley

The mechanics of life continue making their way

Through shadow in an artificial world

They mend and sew,

Holding fast to a sinking ship

That creeks in the night

And sways heavy in the day

A vessel haunted by the living

From where they are never released

Walking among the dead

 They pass between rising moons and falling stars

With indifference

 Yet within the hours contained here the sun will rise

 And the visitors will come,

Turning monastery into zoo,

Sinner into saint,

The flocks pass with the fading light

Darkness brings order and restores madness

In the valley below the children turn in their beds,

The dogs stir and the lovers roll,

Like sleep or breath or embedding,

And yet in the hours contained here the sun will rise.
9/26/02 mlb