Alchemy

This morning I went for a jog under a dark sky textured like fleece, over trails mosaic with fallen leaves.  The pond to my right exhaled a mist that brooded upon reflected moonlight and translated it into a luminous weave.  Janie's paws clicked fast and light in comparison to my thudding footfalls, and I could feel her muscled neck straining against the leash and its imposition of my own lagging rhythm. 

Not so lagging as it might be, I want to admonish her: Be grateful.  And, remembering how, months ago, the slow journey from driveway to living room couch would utterly sap my strength--how my heart rate would grow frantic from the act of brushing my teeth--I find myself welling with a joy that, even more than my steady heartbeat and deep breathing, feels like life. 

I am learning that each moment is an opportunity for alchemy: taking the stuff of present sensations and blending in the bittersweet flavors of the past, adding the inexhaustable oil of God's annointing presence, and the  assurance of the good future before you.  Suddenly your heart is turning everything to gold.  Suddenly your life is worship.  The mustard seed in your soul is translated: it is an eternity of fruitful bounty planted by Love Himself. 

You realize, with Richard Wilbur, that this is no outer dark / but a small province haunted by the good, / where some things may be understood / and where, beneath the sun's coronal arc, / we keep our proper range, / aspiring, with this lesser globe of sight, / to gather tokens of the light / not in the bullion, but in the loose change.