Covenant Water runs from a spout below my open window. A February sun thaws what's left of Thursday's storm. It is a day of whites and blues a squint-eyed day, a hold-still, breathe-deep day. When God made the world and put Adam and Eve in the garden of greens and orchids and grapes, part of Him longed for the day when they would discover winter. When it snows in the South, parents wake their children, even at three in the morning to see flakes like goose feathers, to feel them tingling on their eyelids. Children can't begin to understand what is given them, what it costs, that the cost doesn't matter. Dear God, don't let me take this day for granted. White edges every fence. Each roof is an untouched field. The honey locust offers clumps of snow like winter fruit left unpicked in its limbs. The ponderosa spreads voluminous petticoats out to dry. Light refracts, splinters across the snow like sequins scattered and hand-sewn on my daughter's wedding veil. It is a day for making vows, the kind you tell no one, the kind you keep.
More Quotes from Elaine Christensen:
DRY LAND All around me your death like some great ocean rages, wave after crashing wave till the cliffs of my arms give way to defenseless shore and I lie blackened against the sand. My hair streams like weeds about my head and pulls me, as surely as the moon pulls her tides, to the depths of earth. In darkness, I am swallowed. In darkness, I remember Jonah... that God prepared for him a black fish and after three days and three nights dear God, dry land appeared.Elaine Christensen
Heredity the transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring I sang in church today. My husband said I tucked my chin a certain way and he glimpsed my father. I often look for him. I have his lips, his small, rounded teeth, though when I smile,
Elaine Christensen
EDEN We had no childhood, Eve and I. Eden was our mother's breast. Our lullaby was earth's first whimperings as grass and herb bloomed seasonless. I named them blade, by stem, by stalk in loneliness, before the Gods formed woman from my rib of dust. The g.
Elaine Christensen
I Have Learned 5 Things 1. The sulfurous flame sunbeams in corners lightning like cracked glass the bulb of an idea your dark eyes all have one source. 2. Pain is truer than people truer than a full plate truer than God 3. Joy is a suitcase packed with everyday things no beaded gowns, no hats no umbrella just pajamas, a toothbrush, sneakers. If it rains stand there soak up every drop like applause. 4. I have learned that I want less the sound of lake water lapping tadpoles listless in sun-heated shallows wispy grass, knobby reeds greeting me, my name caught in their raspy throats one or two clouds and a bird, maybe, if it doesn't sing. 5. Old age is where you started, a child looking up at the light at jumbled faces at mouths whispering, 'there, now, go back to sleep.'
Elaine Christensen
AND I REMEMBER only this a window box with red geraniums overlooking a cobblestone street our room up a dark narrow staircase and you in that ridiculous tub with Paris all around us the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, Notre Dame always your knees scrunched up by your ears in the bright blue tile tub of our attic cranny above the noisy Rue de Vaugirard framed in red blossoms nothing more.
Elaine Christensen
WAKING In spring I write of earth still half asleep, of matted grass and weeds not yet aware that stretching fingers stir the soil down deep and sift the frozen dreams of roots with air that breathes forgotten scents of blossoming. I write of branches stiff and gnarled with cold, like ancient bones that can't remember spring or how the sun could painlessly unfold each timid, paling leaf. I write of birds returning one by one. They leave their flocks for tempting caterpillars scrawled like words across my garden wall of crumbling rocks. These early signs of spring unthaw my brain from numbing winter rest. I write again.
Elaine Christensen
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Based on Topics: Children Quotes, Garden Quotes, God Quotes, Light Quotes, Morning Quotes, Parents Quotes, Snow Quotes, Winter Quotes, World QuotesBased on Keywords: clumps, eyelids, flakes, hand-sewn, locust, orchids, ponderosa, sequins, snows, splinters, spout, squint-eyed, thursdays, tingling, untouched, voluminous
The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live.
Amy Poehler
I still don't look at myself as a star. I've always had a thankful heart.
Brenda Lee