Streaming 2

Morning coffee in hand, tread downstairs to office and plant myself before that glowing monster for which I both used to dread and crave – now only crave.  Dread because I craved it so; crave because of its glow.  That glow warmed me in lonely times.  Times were mostly lonely then.  It seems they had been for a while; perhaps years - yes years. 

Everyone seemed to have changed, but me.  My mother and father had aged and become distant to me, when they should have been close to give comfort to, as they move past life.  My soul moved away many years ago and this absence gave reason to seek the glow; the warmth of each stroke guided me through darkened times.  My children had grown so tall and their height hid me.  It covered me like a Brazilian canopy and I had become lost amidst their cool shadows and green undergrowth, though it mostly had soothed me.  It was a pleasant lost at first, but even a pleasant lost, can go wrong if sunlight never breaks through on you; providing clarity of danger and warmed skin to remind you that, you're alive too. 

The beauty of a rain forest can, over time, turn on you and with each drip off tropical palm and humid leaf, the life giving moisture kept there can build around you in a torrent and gather you around the neck, arms flailing about to stay above certain death. 

Paradise can claim you this way, subtly and sometimes without awakening you.  Those fortunate, like myself, awaken before the drips turn torrent, even if only right before.  Lucky am I, to have had a brief moment, a glimpse of light through the canopy; enough to give vision to self and the danger of gathering drips about me, all around me, upon my head and swallowing my feet and legs.  This fleeting moment gave time to me; time to take hold of sturdy branch; time to climb above the currents that consume so many that weren't afforded this light.  I feel blessed now; gifted even, at my awakening to a flood; the rising waters moving me, forcing me higher and higher into the trees; closer and closer to the light that was hidden for so long.  The branches of raised hard woods hold me now, rather than me tending to them, as I continue my ascent out of their cool shadows and into the warmth of suns long forgotten – suns of my own.  

I live atop the canopy now and have claimed the height there as my home.  The sunshine that raptured me turned out to be the monster's glow from so long ago.  The glow I dreaded in office below; the glow I craved for its warmth in lonely times; the glow left to me when lives go as mine went.  This glow of mine, I think I'll keep.  It has restored hope, lifted me from demon's grasp and brought me flight off angel's wings;  restored a voice that was afraid to sing and given me the peace that lullabies bring.