GOD'S TOUCH

Haibun Monday at dVerse.  Kim is hostess, and challenges us “to write about a time when you last watched stars, a storm, the sea, an animal, or something else in nature that left you with a sense of wonder or awe.  

Submitted to dVerse, November 23, 2020

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Over 25 years ago, my daughter and her then husband had moved to the state of Oregon, and I had gone to visit.  I had commented many times that the sky seemed “big” in Oregon, for reasons I can’t explain.  I don’t recall the occasion, but we were on an obscure and very dark country road somewhere between Albany and Corvallis when my son-in-law pulled the car to the side of the road, turned off the engine and said “Let’s look at the sky”.  By that point in my life I’d for some time lived in a large city where all but the brightest stars were hidden in the smog that overhangs our large cities.  Standing beside the car at roadside, I looked up to see the most magnificent display of starlight that fairly took my breath away.  I don’t know how long we stood, identifying the Big and Little Dipper, the North Star, and other constellations.  It was a magic I’d not seen since my childhood on the Illinois prairie, a quiet time when  I felt a thrill, as if I’d touched the hand of God. There are signal moments in our lives that stay forever in the attic of our brains, archived for a lifetime.  I will always remember that moment, and be grateful to a young man whose love of nature never dimmed.  

Star light, star bright

Magic carpet of the night

I feel God’s touch