The Madonna Secret

Today, when I remember her fear of me, I try to let my anger immediately sink in my body, like dirt in water, settling slowly in my feet, and sinking lower still, safely back into the earth.

What a burden I am to you, I thought. Thank you for your service. Perhaps someday, somewhere else, you will ride me.

Have you ever rested in the water, the breath in your lungs keeping you afloat, gazing up at the flat sky above you until you are not sure you have ever been human? You

those uncanny moments where the body and the spirit collided.

Each inhale was a lifetime, each exhale a dreamless sleep that lasted centuries.

It reminded me of a dreamer struggling to wake but finding he has gone in the opposite direction: dreaming himself into an even deeper sleep.

This was my spirit that had existed before the garden. Before the flood. Before mankind.

No. I wanted a tree. A storm. A disaster. Someone huge and strong and rooted. Someone who was of the ground and the water and the sky.

To sleep and awaken was a miracle.