This Independence Day we are visiting some of Tyler’s extended family in Colorado for a long-weekend. It is a chance to reconnect with family I haven’t seen in years, and to get away from the rush of New Jersey life. It is also a chance to form a new relationship with a part of my Country with which I have had very limited interaction.
I’m a coastal girl, and since our sojourn in Europe I am decidedly a city girl as well. But, for these few days I am incredibly grateful for the chance to learn from a very different part of my native culture.
Lessons from the Sky
Wide open Colorado sky,
you can’t make up your mind.
Is your soul the brilliant blue,
bathing in reflected light
that rolls and dances with cascading white?
Or is your truth the smudged and streaking gray
that cries cold tears upon
my lately sun-warmed skin?
Expressions mix above this bowl twixt mountains spread.
And call forth from my center answering cries
of joy and pain.
And in that mingling inner song
I recognize:
The interweaving light and dark that you display
I feel as well,
and this wide open sky supplies the space
to speak a truth too big to hold inside.
Faith, Family, & Focaccia 