The Pacific – 2

Today Patricia and I head back to Portland around noon for an overnight there and an early am flight on Thursday, October 11, for Sarasota (by way, of course, of Atlanta).

I continue to be awed by the majestic beauty we have encountered over these weeks of our lives.

Patrick Kavanagh, in his poem, “To a Child”, wrote these lines:

 

Child there is a light somewhere

Under a star.

Sometime it will be for you

A window that looks 

Inward to God.

 

The mysterious play of light and shadow has awed me every single day of these many weeks.  It has been the light of sun and moon, for sure.  But also the beauty, and sometimes aching weariness, in the eyes of family and friend and stranger.

All this long/short while we have been bathed in light and shadow . . . as has the world.  Removed, somehow, are we, yet connected more deeply.

For now, it is enough for me to say:

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

 

The play of light gives pause

for awe.

 

And . . .

there is terrible, violent, malicious, darkness,

still.

 

Today the NYT headline was about the tragic shooting of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan at the age of 14.  She was shot by masked Taliban gunmen, because she courageously, repeatedly, publicaly spoke out for the education of girls.

 

The post is dedicated to Malala.

 

The whole of Kavanagh’s poem is:

 

To a Child

 

Child do not go

Into the dark places of soul,

For there grey wolves whine,

The lean grey wolves

 

I have been down

Among the unholy ones who tear

Beauty’s white robe and clothe her

In rags of prayer.

 

Child, there is a light somewhere

Under a star.

Sometime it will be for you

A window that looks

Inward to God.

 

Malala, thank you for your bright light.

May your life embolden us to be bearers of the light.