(On reading “The Sacred Journey”, by Frederick Buechner)
I have a new soulmate.
I don’t know her name, her face,
Or actually, that she is a “she” at all.
I do imagine her to be.
A woman past her middle-aged;
Single – whether by choice or by widow, I could not say.
She is huddled beneath a blanket, or maybe just a shawl.
With her knees drawn up to her chest,
She is seated at a wooden kitchen table.
Window to her left,
She lifts her coffee
(With too much sugar and even more cream),
And takes her first hesitant sip of the morning.
She has a pencil at the ready,
And from time to time she snatches it up,
Makes a note, then continues on reading.
Nodding every once in awhile,
Cocking her head to the side at that point,
Lifting her eyes up occasionally
To stare out the window with this point.
She’s lost deep in thoughts
That the words on the page invoked.
This woman,
Whom I’ve never met,
And never will,
Is the borrower before me –
The same library book, read decades before I.
She has made notes at the top of the same pages
That made the hairs on my arms stand up.
She’s put brackets around the same paragraphs I nod to.
In this, I know with unwavering certainty,
That we have walked similar roads, fought familiar battles, and most likely have mirrored scars.
She’s put check marks next to the really good stuff,
And turned down pages that earn a second reading.
Her written notes are my same internal thoughts,
Her brackets, my amens,
And her check marks my gasps and “ah-hah’s”;
This soul sister of mine.
Michelle Davis Art 