Fingerprint Trails

There are a lot of questions and so few answers going around. Like a freezing night with a tiny blanket - do my toes freeze, or my face? My left side or my right? Or perhaps all of me can be covered, but poorly, with a ratty blanket, gnawed and thin with age. And it's so cold.

In my last several trips to visit my family, I noticed something interesting. Sitting outside the rooms where each family member sits, when they were alone, I heard nothing. But the instant I moved and made sounds in the hallway, down the stairs, past the rooms, they would start talking. Not necessarily to me, though sometimes, but more frequently just tiny snippets out loud. Why? Why would Phil suddenly find it necessary to say to himself, "This next scene is my favorite" when watching a movie by himself? Or Sam suddenly remark, "this guy isn't doing any of the right things, so we're going to lose soon if I don't play this next portion right" when no one else is in the room as he plays his game? Why would my dad suddenly comment on how fantastic a portion of mythbusters is - who is he talking to? - or mom laugh and exclaim how much she loves this show?

No one is around - who are these questions for?

Me. Me?

You see, when I wasn't making any noise, there was silence. But when I moved, suddenly someone is listening, someone is there. They don't know who, but each one of those people wants whoever it is to be interested, to be intrigued enough with the question to saunter in and be enchanted with his or her life. Not even to answer the questions, or statements, whatever they may be, but to invest their being in a response. I have no answers, but sometimes I can be, and be in the right place, and that is sufficient. And I hope that when the time comes and I'm spouting off cries for help or calls for assurance, that someone is there, someone does respond, and drops in to offer a little human contact.

Fingers leave oil prints on freezing glass, like foot tracks of a beast who went not far. Is it better, then, this glass, which brittle breaks into countless shards, than steely metals which when bent do bend, and so ceaselessly endure the pain? It's not me who asks - no, not me - but the fire-breasted robin in the trees and the japanese sparrowhawk as he wheels above the leaves, in air vaster than mountains and even seas. Questions without greener pasture or silky answers, warm as summer eve; questions at whose gravity the beast falters and falls, after but ten steps of dreams. When the weight of the world rests heavily, so heavily you cannot breathe, it's love or flee, struggle or believe, and under certain lights, shattered glass coruscates, bright as those endless stars.