One Day

Van Gogh and Damien Rice.

Walk into this room, downstairs in the basement of the soul. Watch your head as you descend the damp wooden steps into the unfinished and unvisited room forgotten beneath the home. The ceiling is low.

Look at the window along the eastern wall. The weeds have grown without notice in the window well, creating a curtain that can't be drawn from where you stand. A few struggling rays of sunlight illuminate the one tattered poster taped to the cement wall. A cheap reproduction of one of Van Gogh's final oil paintings. Wheatfield and Mountains. Inspired by the view the genius gazed upon from his barred windows in the Saint-Remy asylum.
Beauty.
Beauty as seen through bars.

You stand and reflect on the wide sweeping movements of battered wheat and swirling clouds rising above the solemn structures of the field--wood and rock.

You are lost in the view. Listen to the song that begins to rise from the dirt floor you stand upon. Repeating piano chords dripping from the ceiling. Soft vocals wrap like a fog around your form and thoughts. Then the ache, shock, and refreshment of cold water on the broken soul.

Cold,
cold water
surrounds me now.
And all I've got
is your hand.

Lord,
can you hear me now?
Lord,
can you hear me now?
Lord,
can you hear me now?
Or
am I lost?

No one's
daughter
Allow me that
And I can't
let go
of your hand

Lord,
can you hear me now?
Lord,
can you hear me now?
Lord,
can you hear me now?
Or
am I lost?

RESPONSE:
Don't you know
I love you
and
I always have
Hallelujah
Will you come with me?


Cold,
cold water
surrounds me now
And all I've got
is your hand

Lord,
can you hear me now?
Lord,
can you hear me now?
Lord,
can you hear me now?
Or
am I lost?

A prayer exhaled in the basement of the soul.
Amen.