The sun
and wind broke sharp and hard through the barren woods. In the wan light
of late afternoon a chain saw gnawed on fallen trees, long two-handled blades
sliced across layers of ringed wood, axes bit through hardened trunks.
The men toiled steadily and relentlessly against the dimming light to harvest
that which on the morrow, burning hot, would press away the cold from their
stone house.
The wood
carefully stacked in the reaches below the house, they entered silently into
chapel whose windows gathered carefully the last fragments of the day’s light.
_________________________________________
In
deepest night, they arose and quietly gathered into chapel. Cloaked in darkness
and remnants of sleep, their prayer broke upon the silence haltingly but with
gathering strength.
Within
the bowels of the still-cold house, a single figure fed the awakening fire
pieces of trees. Warmth rose slowly, insistently into the stones above.
Their
prayer continued through the night, and with increasing intensity rose
heavenward. Prayer and wood-scented smoke mingled and ascended, embraced
by a God eagerly awaiting with them the arrival of a new day.
- RJ Christopher
