at twilight every evening

I pull the wooden shutters shut

anticipating morning and their opening

'good morning, Lord' I whisper

 thank you for another day'

 
and then

I stand 

looking out

I stare

heat from the radiators warm 

where my stomach...legs press up against them

I feel the warmth

and some days the sun comes in on my cheeks

bright warm light

I feel the warmth

I remember as a little child 

the windows 

pretending to be a princess

a ledge two inches wide my balcony

I remember as a young girl 

looking out watching waiting

for what I no longer know

was it saying good-bye

or awaiting hello

I remember holding my babies up to the window
showing them the wonder  before them
of daylight or nighttime

and I remember the incessant darkness most recently of the nursery where I held little ones

for days and weeks and sometimes more than a month on end

little ones never seeing 

the light of day

or dark of night

just the constant industrial fluorescents overhead

I would sway and tell them it gets so much better you know

there is something called sunlight and you can actually feel it

and there is moon light that causes shadow 

even in the dark of night

and there is green

trees and grass

and blue sky and ocean...

and those, sweet little one...

are just a few of the wonders for you to keep your eyes open for 

when you are better 

and can leave this place

and I would pray...

that the ones who gave them birth

and life

would care for them better than they had in utero

that they would love them 

and tend to them 

and show them 

all the beauty and blessings of the world that surrounds them

I would pray...

and I would think of my God

and how He released me...

into the care of humans

and prayed the same thing for me 

as He sent me out into His creation

with the parents who made me and birthed me into life...

He would pray...

care for this little one whom I so love

show her

all the beauty that surrounds her

that I've made for her to grow in

love her

like I do

and tell her about Me

so she knows she's loved
always has been 

and will be forever

  

but life sometimes is busy and messy and dark

and it's so easy to forget
but sometimes I remember

that this world isn't just dark and messy and for being busy

it's beautiful

and it's for me

because He loves me...

and the windows...

the hope 
of what's out there has always eluded me

I can't seem see

though surely I have been shown

I just stand staring

through perfect panes of glass all around me

trying to see my way through

and I remember once upon a time when I was already grown up

and had four grown  children of my own

another mother a tad bit older 

told me

there are different kinds of windows

not just the perfect pane glass picture windows you have always longed for...

there is stained glass...

broken shattered stained 

with color

and fit together

to tell a story all its own

by the ones who create them...

and as I wander

in the darkness of the light of day 

unknowing and unknown

I enter into a little corner chapel

and before my eyes 

light spills

pouring down the walls 

drenching everything it touches

sunshine saturated with color

light through stained glass windows

and in the silence I hear my story

that the perfect squares of picture windows never could tell

picture windows are for seeing out...

the trees the sky the blue...

they illuminate clearly each dusty surface, tuft of lint, fallen crumb, smeary fingerprint

within...

but 

when the light steams through glass that has been stained and shattered

fit back together and re-created

a story is revealed
that had been hidden