" ... In Whom I Am Well Pleased"

A bad dream struck

laying a heavy pressure

of terrible pain

across my chest

as I saw my attention once again

torn away from

giving my gift of healing

as a teacher

to finding secondary aids, band aids.

I had the sense to turn

to see myself as a child

pushing my tiny palms

into Lena's giant palms.

I am leaning my full weight

into her palms

and pushing with all my might.

She pushes back, saying an "Oh"

echoing with surprise at my strength.

I push harder. She pushes harder.

I surprise her crossing hands.

Our left hands push up together.

We both stretch as high as we can

still pushing against each other

keeping the fervor of the game

on the up and up.

I was sitting between her long legs

stretched out on the floor.

Now she stands, patting her palms

against mine, wherever they find mine

as I wind between her legs.

I look for a chair I can stand on

to be opposite her –

not in the kitchen where Mommy

will dampen our good spirits.

I stand on my bed and lean into Lena's palms.

She pats her thighs too

in between pressing my palms.

We cross hands syncopating.

I'm getting gigglier.

She's keeping up intently.

Suddenly my legs are around her ribs

and I'm leaning back against her arms

smiling broadly into her face.

Then she bundles me together

and holds me close in her crossed arms.

I am a dark warmth there

dissolved in her hug.

She swivels left and right

back and forth humming

a sweet melody over me

as she holds me tight.

I reemerge in sitting position

in her arms looking up into her face.

"I love you," she says looking down into mine.

"Guess what?" I say.

"I cannot guess," she says, "you must tell me."

"I love you," I say looking right into her eyes.

"You do?" she asks. I nod vigorously.

"Are you sure?" she asks.

And, as I nod Yes even more vigorously,

a surge of love fountains up

through me into her.

I know this scene has the power

to see me through this season of darkness,

out of the flu, beyond the chaos.

It tells me what I need to know.

It lets me feel what I need to feel.

It reminds me that this is what I have teach,

no matter how washed out I feel at the moment:

showing people our newfound ability to

raise such moments in consciousness

when they appear to be most absent in our lives.

If we all knew to cherish such moments

as the true gold of life

would any of us be relegated to

living on shores swept by tsunamis?

When I hear that God spoke of

"Jesus in whom I am well pleased,"

I want to say stop there, stay with the power

of dwelling on being well pleased with each other;

with our ability to go to the source of such pleasure;

to raise up this admiration and share it;

to climb back into such pure love

and splash it in each other's faces,

letting it wash all else away.

We're continually asked to dwell on the vast wreckage of lives,

and on the suffering in the wreckage.

I ask that we start seeing through

to the prevention of the next, and then

the next disaster we've set up.

Let us care for each other well enough

to find long lost palms to push,

loving arms to climb into and eyes to look into,

raising surges of joy to carry us above and beyond

the current devastation that

the absence of concentration on raising such love

has brought upon us.

When Lena told me, "I love you,"

and insisted I tell her, "I love you,"

until we could feel its fountainous force rising through us,

we raised our play to true heights,

we shared the love we neglected to mention

in real life over sixty years ago.

We finally let it shine out

as the pinnacle of our being human.

What could be more valorous than resurrecting

our delight in this hidden love?

I keep having to find a dawning within me

bright enough to raise me up.

For now, Lena carries the torch

whose beam is strong enough

to break out of my crushed heart.