tracks

I accidentally came across
her tracks this morning.
evidence of a crossing
here

I've been looking for grace,
looking for signs
marks in the dirt
or snow

occasionally scattered
across this long road we travel

saturated so that we cannot
distinguish it from the soil we tred

deep wells of grace

we linger long

at these reservoirs

drinking deeply

shafts of grace

shimmering through the shadows

illuminating the healing

the laughter

shards of grace

sometimes sharp

cutting away

burdens we need not carry

she came this way once too
looking for grace
leaving marks on the pages
for me to follow



This season's search for grace led me to Philip Yancy's "What's so Amazing about Grace", a book that I must have claimed from Mom and Dad's bookshelves in the days of their dismantling.  Mom's name and address are on the inside cover, and her notes and highlights are all through the book.  
As I read the book, with her handwriting in the margins, I realized again how strangely disorienting it is to have her gone ... this woman whose tracks I have noted - sometimes to follow them, sometimes to avoid, but always they have been like a compass bearing.