The Centers of Storms are the Calms

Clarity has extra edges after storms pass. 

All things are sharper than before, broken things are merely broken and no longer dangerous.  

 The peripheries are visible, we can mark the risks.

The air is charged with things that could have been but weren't, dangers or losses that were endured or never suffered. Things smell cleansed and electric.

Old trails are washed away. History gets a small sense of erasure. 

Things look different when light comes. 

Their shape, 

their size 

their age.

Their cracks and crevices, and my own as well.  

Things look True.

In that first cold light of morning, it is hard not to pity the things that need the may-be. 

Now reduced in size and scope, still dangerous 

but not unknown.

Not unmanageable. 

Not unimaginable.

Poor things.

Light is invasive, it is far more unforgiving than the Darkness. Darkness is full of could-be, Light is filled with is.

It takes talent to hide in Light, a trick we have learned here at the House.

Do not mistake the Light for warmth, we use it for what it is. 

Tonight, when the day slips through the cracks of time and night overtakes our patch of land again, it will not have the heaviness of the Darkness, which grinds its gears, perambulating on its way with those who choose to keep it close. It will return to being Somewhen Else, and here it will only be night. 

Tonight we will sing a softer song to offer up to the Universe. I will sing again for the Darkness. I will wish it whatever darkling peace it can be bestowed and honor its elsewhen claim. Someone needs to and the Darkness used to be mine. It still cannot abide here. It has no right to the Now. 

We do not belong to the Darkness.

 

We do not belong to the Light.

Either one will have to get through me. I will protect those that are mine. I will sometimes waver, but I will win. We are prepared.

Here at the House, we are standing, and we are still our own. 

Preparation for a Sadducean Shabbat

Somewhen Elses's Darkness will fall upon the House tonight.

With the million tiny compromises and the thousand intaken breaths.

With the vigilance of waiting. 

With the soundwaves tranquil, waiting to be shattered. 

Tomorrow there will be prayers to gods no one believes in, there will be offerings to tiny gods that need to be appeased. 

The food offering.

The salt offering.

The water offering. 

The tiny chipped off pieces of soul that are offered up so readily.

Tonight, slightly before the Darkness arrives, we will light candles at the House. 

When I sing my offerings tonight to the immensity of the Universe,  I will also sing for the Darkness, because someone needs to. Because there was a time when that Darkness belonged to me.  

How empty, how destitute, when only your sworn enemy will offer you succor? 

How could it not despise me?

I will stare into the chasm of the could-haves and the will-bes and the once-weres. I will protect those that are mine.  And I will wait for the motors to run and the gears to turn until the Darkness recedes its tentacles, back into the homes and hearts and entrails where it is welcomed.

I will not bar the door, but I will not let it reside.

We are prepared. As with any possible storm, it could destroy everything. Again.

Perhaps it will be nothing. 

But if it is not, I promise that we will be here, standing, at the House.

It will still only be Darkness, that belongs somewhen else, and even if it damages and marks us, we will still be our own. 

We do not belong to the Darkness.