I am desperate to begin. I have become too mindful of suffering and darkness; they attend to me even when I bid them not to, like scavenger birds perched and waiting for the calf to die. And when I seek a finer grace in the day, some essence of love and life, the light fades beneath my eyes. I will not abandon the quest before it has truly begun, however. I will let this grief sharpen my gaze, polish and shape it until it becomes a magnifying lens through which I might yet see.
