Smoke Gets In Your Eyes...

I slipped outdoors as the day--long, and gray, and lazy--wound to a close. The "dim" was creeping cat-like over our land, leaving footprints of pinks, and orange, and gray tiptoeing behind it in the sky over our small farm.

Abra, Sarah's feisty, muscular little pup, ran with me. Excitement leapt into her large dark eyes as she saw me nearing the door with boots in hand; nearly wriggling herself to pieces with happiness when I finally slipped out.

We two ran across our back lawn, slipping away to the solitude of the trail cut through the wild tangle of our twenty-five acres. Old-time music filled my ears; a favorite thing of mine to do as I walk our property. The trees, still stark and bare, wove their branches in tangled webs above our heads, as I paused, chin uplifted, to marvel at the beauty God has created.

I don't think that there is anything else quite so nice as the quiet companionship of a pup tumbling about your feet on a long walk. They never break a perfect, fragile silence with unimportant words; they ask for nothing more than an extra scrap of your attention, and are more than content with just a good scratch behind the ear every now and again.

I ran laughing & tumbling across the uneven, wet ground, not caring that the bottoms of my pants were getting soaked with every step I took, only thankful to be young, and alive, and well. Abra, bouncing along rabbit-like ahead of me showed her discontent when my steps slowed by jumping towards me again and again with legs held stiff and straight before her.

We paused, as we usually do, at the farthest bend of the trail, where our land mingles with two fields of neighboring farms. A spot that always...somehow...makes me inexplicably want to...dance.

Abra, her dark eyes staring out disapprovingly from amidst the brown, crackling underbrush that lines the path, watched...as the lone girl, with muddy black pants & icy cold hands, danced & swirled all by herself beneath the covering of a few wise old oaks. You could tell by her eyes that she thought the girl was crazy.

But you see...

sometimes life is too beautiful to worry about seeming crazy. Sometimes...you just have to dance, and dance, and dance.

So the girl did, as a lovely old melody rose up to mingle with the very first stars.

...So I smile and say

When a lovely flame dies

Smoke gets in your eyes...