Our lives are snowflakes this April,
Melting suddenly as they hit the ground.
So we froze, suspending
Ourselves in skyscrapers,
Paused and muted.
–
Silent lightning cracks the sky above,
A full moon peaks through the clouds,
And fresh air blows off the unrestrained lake.
The world will spin on–
–
And we loosen our grip
On ephemeral nothings
We thought we controlled.
Contagion silently cracks
Our lofty fortresses.
–
We think we hear a whisper
From the world of motion and sound
Calling us to breathe unmasked,
To resume, but in timeless hope,
No longer feebly temporal.
-N.R.
The city of Chicago at this time is the most still that I’ve ever experienced it in the last two and a half years, and I’m sure it hasn’t been like this for a long time in its history. I wrote this while watching the city and contemplating how fragile our grasp on life really is, how easily it seems everything has been halted and we have lost security in so many things we assumed were trustworthy in this world. Even time itself feels meaningless to many of the people I’ve spoken to. But God reaches into those spaces with hope of an eternal future that revives and reanimates.
