January 19
If you don’t think the world is magical
or that God doesn’t spin whimsy things,
try buttoning your coat
and traipsing out into heel-deep snow
when somewhere behind stacks of clouds
the sun is almost gone.
Make sure the sky is spilling flakes.
Forget gloves,
forget a cap.
If you stomp around enough the blood inside you
will run its course and heat your bones
till you forget the air’s bite.
Try to hold your hot breath.
Listen to the silence of the storm.
Clouds are bellowing beauty and all you hear
is your heart under your coat.
Let the flakes seep into your hair
and be sure to lick up the ones on your chin.
While you’re at it, scoop up a handful
in your bare hand until it stings.
Watch them melt into you, then drip down your wrist
and back to the earth.
Suck in long and deep
so your lungs go frosty.
See how the gumballs hang in dusted clumps off the oak
and how the streetlamp’s glow
silhouettes them.
Don’t let Narnia get lost on you.
Breathe it up and call it what it is:
Whimsical.
Magical.
God-breathed.
“This is lovely,” said Lucy to herself. It was cool and fresh; delicious smells were floating everywhere. Somewhere close by she heard the twitter of a nightingale beginning to sing, then stopping, then beginning again. It was a little lighter ahead. She went toward the light and came to a place where there were fewer trees, and whole patches of moonlight, but the moonlight and the shadows so mixed that you could hardly be sure where anything was or what it was. At the same moment the nightingale, satisfied at last with his tuning up, burst into full song.”
C. S. Lewis – Prince Caspian
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