For a love older than the earth herself (#SmallWonder)

I found her thrust deep into my heart
last August
from somewhere, someone Divine.
Because had I known what loving her would entail,
I’d have balked at the unknown.
I’ve have settled for something
less foreign,
something
less challenging,
something
less costly,
than her.

But she came all the same and I’ve found
glimmers
of a soul as I finger trace
the etches of her shell,
ripples on a pond of bone.
And I awaken to mystery
in the deep beaded pools of her dark eyes.
And I connect with a life,
with imprints of God,
outside my human skin
as I stroke each tiny scale of her leathered
cobblestone legs.

And Love, yes,
I’ve found this, too.
How it gathers in my throat and bunches
in the pockets of my eyes,
as it did the other night when I stood over her new home.
The one my husband and I constructed for her,
our hearts on a singular mission:
make her happy.
With the silent streak of a thousand falling stars
I knew we did this not for a pet,
nor for a project,
nor to indulge the sentiment of “spoiling” a creature in lieu of a child.

We did this for love.

For we do not own her any more than we own the
desert from which she was stolen,
captive.
And out of some deep human shame
covered by some redemptive love deeper than shame,
we did this because it’s right and good.

And that is a wonder, small and full and deep,
older than the earth herself.

Joining Kelly and the community at Small Wonder