We Work.....

We work to play to feel the wind and sea
To cool the hot, tired soul that strives to rise
Again from ashes, sweat no more this tree
Stronger, vibrant, reach for the sun to live.

Work comes first to pave the heart’s way home
Bound no more once daytime toil’s done well
Free to fill the spirit and free to roam
To laugh and wonder at Earth’s grandest show.

Twilight will come, deep sleep to follow knowing 
The sun will rise to greet you with a song
This day will be a great one to embrace 
Before horns blow to start our work once more.

The Sign....

One could not help but notice them while driving around our new Caribbean neighborhood.  Each home had a style and structure unlike any other.  Each had a distinctive name.  Like “Sea Forever”, “Reef Madness” or “Great Expectations”.  And that name was displayed at its entrance on signs that were all the same style but customized by its creator, the old island potter in the village below us who for years had turned out hundreds of these popular signs.  On this diverse island they were a unifying spirit. 

We happily marched in to meet him.  An island artist with a friendly face and penetrating eyes, he went right to work to design what he described as an enduring work of art for our home.  Six weeks later we proudly held our expensive piece of custom clay with the word “Magic” scrolled on it.  Adorned with a calm blue sea and a palm tree, it was actually three pieces which fit together like a puzzle to form a serene scene befitting the name we chose for our new home in paradise.  “Magic”.  We loved it. 

During a family visit my son, my Uncle Dan and I carefully selected the best spot to place this masterpiece and after much consideration chose the flat face of a large boulder flanking our driveway.  With exterior construction adhesive we permanently bonded each fragile piece to the heavy granite block.  “That should hold it”,  Uncle Dan quipped admirably as we finished our work four hundred feet up a hillside.  That sign would last an eternity.

Eight years later, the storm hit.  Wind speeds higher than ever recorded headed toward our little island.  Back in the states I worked but in between patients kept checking the live satellite images, watching in horror as the eye of the hurricane crept closer and closer to our island community.  Wind speeds increased.  Forecasts worsened.  The computer images sickened me.  

An unexplained gap in my schedule allowed me a break just as the eye careened into land.  Closing myself in a private space,  I just sat.  Eyes closed.  Meditating.  My breathing quickened.  My heart raced.  With trembling hands  I prayed.  My skin tingled as if frozen and I could not move.  Like the voodoo rituals of the shaman of Obeah, I felt spirited into the center of the storm.  

Magically transported back to my island home I could feel the sand at my feet and the tropical foliage brushing against my skin.  My strength grew.  My sweaty arms wrapped around the body of the island buffering the horrible winds.  My shoulders braced against palm trees lending them support.  Like a stone wall my hands secured sandy shores.  With toes dug into the flooding earth my rain soaked body stiffened as the relentless winds pummeled our home.  A panicked child watching a sandcastle melt into a rising tide, I felt at once both helpless and empowered.  I grabbed for more and heaved against the strengthening storm.  The winds roared until all sound just disappeared.  At the moment the storm hit,  I was there.  

A month went by before we got the news.  The worst storm to ever hit the tropics had for five horrible hours blown 200 mph winds across our island demolishing homes and dreams.  Trees snapped.  Boats sank.  Roofs were blown away.  While two homes above us succumbed to a tornado which spewed pieces of it onto our land, “Magic” had leaned hard into those winds bending but not breaking.

When we returned two months later, the community was unrecognizable and damage was extensive but our home was still standing.  Digging through the pieces of twisted metal and broken lumber under the watch of our resilient palm trees, it was hard to find paradise.  Whole trees were gone.  Parts of our home were missing.  Including our beloved sign, boulder and all.

As I explored the rubble, a rustling sound caught my attention. Under a fallen tree limb and a pile of debris, something was moving.  I pulled back a tree branch and there grinning back at me was a fist-sized hermit crab busily crawling away.  “Hey little fella!  What’s your name?”  I asked, halfway expecting a response.  He was half a mile from the nearest shoreline, high up our hillside but looking none the worse from the storm.

Following the tiny traveler a bit, he led me to another fallen tree but I lost him when he ducked under another branch.  Pulling back that branch, the little visitor had disappeared.  But there, hiding under the chaos, sat our sign.  “Magic” was unbroken and still clinging to that big boulder which the storm had somehow shoved down the hill.  

Removed from that boulder too big to move, "Magic" now rests in a different place but still a welcoming spirit to all creatures who visit us, great and small.