Strike Sparks

Dry Season

This is the season of waiting.

The dust makes tornadoes in the road and the wind whips.

The clouds gather heavy with expectation and they pause. A pause that sounds deafening as the moment before a birth cry.

And a question. When will the rains come?

Splinter thick, hope embeds her mark on the soul. We have a promise.

It will come. Like dreams remembered in sleep barely waking, we etch images of land and rivers, homes and bonfires, and children lit up by the wavering sun. A place of healing. A sanctuary of whispered prayers the heart finds the daring to pray.

A home. A retreat. A resting place for God.

We go back to scribbled words in journals, inked in candelight and morning light and we hold them open to heaven as if to say, “See, you said.”

Yesterday the children practicing listening to God. Their shaky, markered words become clear on the page, “I am a daughter.”

And the red blob is heaven.

And who is that hovering?

It's “malaika,” an angel. And the “holy spirit, ” is coming close.

And everywhere, in their pictures, the rains are falling.