THE MARCH PRAYER

In the March afternoons, or all the days long for that matter, it can be gray, wanting. The month is unreliable that way. Sometimes a spray of sunshine lets itself through the upper worlds and descends. Sometimes the sky turns an incredibly deep textured blue and one thinks this is it, - the real end to winter, - that the old season has finally traded itself in.

But the gray darkens and overtakes the lakes and fields, the suburban roads and rooftops. It spreads ‘round forest trees like ink and claims rights to the tops of malls, - the sills of windows, and anything once shiny or bright. And the dusk learns how to be night while the snow begins again; - snow mixed with rain- a sleet, hail, mixed concoction. 

This is where and when and how it wants the inhabitants’ worlds large and small to give up or fear. It wants the fox to go back somewhere, the rabbit to hide, and the person to grumble or recoil in a dark or at least darkish mind-soul haze. And many do.

But there is a type of fox that is strange, perhaps for its brain or soul, - and it runs anyhow through the fields. There is a type of rabbit that, against logic, - goes out from its hiding place and forages for food. And there is a type of person, having seen many seasons and challenges, - that stands upright and stretches to the sky and smiles anyhow.

The haughty ones, in judgement and condemnation, the envious ones, - in snide remark and smile, - have not yet, together with the weather, and it is the March weather of their soul, - managed to fell the person. 

In March afternoons, or in all the days long for that matter, it can be gray, wanting. The month is unreliable that way. 

But the spirit of certain people is not- and goes on, a prayer of light uttered confidently in the dark of the March forests and forms.