Laughter, After

Laughter, After
(On "Faith Healing")

One can hear the phrase "Faith Healing" as the healing of wounded faith (as in: faith, healing). Or as the way faith, like nothing else, heals. I guess that it does. This way: I sit on a porch and I stare at the ocean, believing that this is time well spent. I understand our whole lives together hover above a small area of the Pacific and I stare. I listen to the family of quail looking for food on our porches, and it is literally a family: mother, father, and a very spotted baby. I am giving myself time, on a Sunday, a day you left, and have none left of. I trust that this is what I need and I listen to the quail, and I hear you say, about the baby: That. Is. So. Cute. And I am grateful for your voice in my ears. So my faith gives me gratitude which leads me to tears of what can only be called joy. So it has happened again: faith led to time led to gratitude led to tears led to joy. I am not past-tense healed, but I am healing. You are healing. Me. Despite the paradox. I bless you for being the wound and the salve simultaneously. Render and mender. Woe-er and Sew-er/Sower. Tearful and cheerful. Latitude/gratitude. Attitude/platitude. Food chewed. Mood-lewd. Quail-wail. Laughter, After. You are cracking me up, and I am back to real joy, and if I weren't writing these words in a roomful of people there'd be real tears, too.