The Doxology by Michael Jones

The water is still, a crystal clear that calls out with a cold carillion of soundless speech. The scent is slight, a hint of the chemical compounds that keep it clean. It is a home when home is not. Through the windows, the morning sun splinters, slightly less harsh in the shade of an overpass. My bones ache, a chorus of accepting dread that cannot quietly keep at peace in days of still advancing age. They crackle, cacophonous in their cries of preparation. They know they will be fine. I know they will be fine. They will remember now the role they once played, reprise their proper place in their dramatis personae. My feet find no more purchase on this pool deck before I embrace the cold.

The water was still, a natural blue-green, ice crawling into the veins of those who ventured to swim. The summer sun was no warmth here, distant as the soil in which I grew. On the shore, rocks, rows upon rows of teeth, rose from soil that was softer at some time. I stood, waiting for the wind to whisk the water away on its quiet wings. I slid my shoes onto scarred feet once again. Along the rocks, others lounge, relaxed and at ease. I am needed elsewhere.

The sky is dark, a space of a singular texture, a weighty deep from the horizon onto forever. My weight presses down on the battered bed of a truck tinted like a tincture of blood. In the distance, fire blooms, bursting bright into a sky that has seen no stars since a time before mine. I draw a leatherbound book from my bag and begin to bring ink to life, writing under the lamp of a hundred momentary stars of purple, blue and green. I write of life. I write again of the land that has allowed me to live this long. I write things that fade. Before they fade, I write of their burning.

Night fell as we watched a bus pass from vision into an endless sea of timber, trees as verdant as any I had known. Those of us who remained leaned against the doors of a car with the keys sealed inside.

I do not remember the words that were as whispers in a world so much wider than we were, but I’m sure they were glorious. What I do remember is what I saw.

Above, a field of blue bloomed with flowers not found in the world I called home. In those hours, with whatever words went from the moments of memory I can still recall, the silence sewed the seeds of a peace that would proliferate in my soul. We stared. I stared, seeing a sky unshrouded by the smog of summer in a City of Sin or a City of Angels. I saw what felt like forever in fields now folded into the fabric of my mind as it melts with time ticking on.

Now, when I wish to wield once again that peace, I sing the same song that so many souls have sung before. I remember the words, each a star in some night sky.