All I Ever Want

I have this image of Him and me in a pasture. It is bordered on one side by a wall of stones, dug up from the soil by generations of worriers before me. Behind us is a narrow dirt road, protected by Sugar Maples flaming in their orange clothes. Some birches are standing close by. They say things I do not understand but find pleasant. And so when they do speak, I take notice, as if I did know. The sun reaches inside me and heals every rawness, all pain. We sit there, He and I. Our arms are about each others shoulders like two boys who’ve not yet let the world fill them with shame. We gaze across fields destined to die. But, for now, they smell sweet from dewy hay that has been cut and rolled, waiting for the barn. Silence is our dialogue. No thinking, just being. Some hawks in the sky seem drunk from the bounty of this last warm day. They take daredevil plunges toward earth and shriek as they play. Ghosts who scare themselves once told me that this love is won only from suffering and charity, worse, fear. But this is a myth; it is not His way. All I need to do is rest in Him and He in me. This is simply enough for Him, and all I ever want.