Who Is That Behind Those Foster Grants?

I had to butt in. The conversations had been swift-changing and lively at Tommyknockers Tavern, as Kelly and I had lunch and a couple of beers. Amid all the retelling of San Juan Mountain life I wanted to tell of my experiences that day.

“We were up around the Rio Grande National Forest, near the reservoir, and saw this herd of mountain sheep.” (Actually, I said “flock” and everyone laughed and informed me it was a “herd”.)  “They were in a meadow along the road we were on. It was a ram and several ewes.”

“More likely all rams,” said our bar companion. “At this time of year the rams all come down but not the ewes.”

“Really? I didn’t see any horns on the others.” I was skeptical.

“Oh, yeah. They all had horns,” Kelly said. “They were just very short.”

“That sounds about right,” our barstool friend said. “A lot more young ones and fewer older rams.”

It was just trivial chatter but

See Me

I have been reading Rainer Maria Rilke's elegies this weekend. I never had before. Such a loss not to have found him before. Throughout these poems he wonders and grieves our transience and the indescribableness of our interior life. We sweep through life that is filled with the solid and concrete but that which seems to be our core leaves no mark. How can something that is so real to us pass from one moment to the next and be entirely new?

I think it is the enigmatic indescribableness that drives us to want to be known. If someone could just see us entirely for who we are wouldn't we be fixed eternally? If fully known and yet loved, wouldn't we be eternally content?

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? . . . the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee . . . ." The all-seeing. The all-loving. Our eternal desire.