Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

If you are drowning in a sewer, your first concern might be that you are drowning, not how vile you smell.”

As well, these simple tasks engaged only the hands and left the mind free to wander unfettered down all manner of interesting pathways.

But I cannot tell you what was said, in the church or at the graveside, save for the line “In the midst of life, we are in Death,” which did indeed seem to me to be the whole description of our plight then.

And yet the good father does not knit his brow in rage at such times, but deals the necessary penances with love in his eyes, in hope of his children’s betterment.”

Despair is a cavern beneath our feet, and we teeter on its very brink.