New Days

(photo by zachary jack marcus)
My birthday is next Tuesday. I will turn 53. That much closer to the resting place of my great something grandfather in northern Vermont. I travel there from time to time to reclaim clarity of all that is fleeting, all that has come before.

I just returned home from a sojourn to northern California where I visited Wolf House, Jack London's home that was to last a thousand years. It burned down before he spent one night there.

While reflecting on the nature of dreams and ruins with a dear compadre of a quarter century, I happened to look to the ground beside me and observe a foot and a half long rattlesnake slithering by my open-toed sandal. A little too close.

Too soon anyway.

I looked up at the sun back-lighting the stone walls of Wolf House. Dreams, ruins, and morning light.

So come Tuesday, I will not mourn that which is passing, but will embrace what remains, the light from the ruins.