To See It
We need to separate
to see the life we’ve made,
to leave our house
where someone waits, patiently,
warm beneath the sheets,
to don layers of armor,
sweater, coat, mittens, scarf,
to stride down the frozen road,
putting distance between us
this cold winter morning,
to look back and see,
on the hilltop, our life,
lit from inside.
—Laura Foley
From It’s This (Fernwood Press, 2023), by Laura Foley. Used by permission of Fernwood Press. All rights reserved. www.fernwoodpress.com. Photo by Sweta Meininger, via Unsplash.
I know this place. I lived on a small farm in the Willamette Valley for ten years. Most nights, I'd bundle up and walk the fence line of the back 15 acres. At the back fence, I stopped and gazed at my house, lit up in the dark, glowing like a music box. Most nights, I realized Being Present there. Beautiful.
"to look back and see,
on the hilltop, our life,
lit from inside"