Lark Ascending

by Silas House

There was some comfort in knowing that, although the world was being torn in two, there were still remarkable things that went on being, that refused to lose their shine.

If you are very lucky it happens occasionally that your body fits with someone else’s in such a way that you feel you are not two separate people but one being, that you’ve gone beyond the physical.

To sit and be silent with someone else. To feel as if you are alone, yet with someone. To feel safe.

Now that I am an old man, I know that there is much to believe in, although I do not have a single word for it the way some people do. To be too certain about belief is a dangerous thing.

this old boy knew what deep loss was, just as I did. Two creatures can always tell that about one another.

but people have fought and died for much more ridiculous beliefs.

If anything in this world was holy it was a tree. This much I knew for sure.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

But I had to go on believing in something. I didn’t know what exactly. A mystery. That’s what it was. Some people called the mystery love and some people called it God. I didn’t know its name, but I knew there was something, even if it was unknowable.

“Don’t you have some songs, boyo?” she asked, after one of her songs. I didn’t know any of them all the way through, but I sang the verses and choruses of all the songs we used to sing back on the Preserve: “Angel from Montgomery,” “No Hard Feelings,” “You Got Gold,” “The Story.”

Do I spy a Brandi Carlile reference ?! <3 Or is there another, The Story?

“Don’t go trusting everyone, Lark. But if we can’t trust a few people in this world, then there’s no point at all,”

A person does not have one life, but many, all within the same lifetime.

The most unfair thing in the world is that dogs do not live as long as we do.