Is it enough...?

The sun still rises over my garden but the winter light is weak...

and sometimes the sun looks like the moon in a monochrome sky.

When I walk in the lanes

and over the fields

the landscape feels raw

and bleak as new grief...

silent as old wounds....

and yet the spikes of daffodil leaves are 4 inches high pushing up the grass in my lawn. I don't feel ready for the urgency of spring. 

My energy is as short lived as the light. 

The light is already fading at 3pm when I'm finishing my late lunch - a big bowl of  left-over curried vegetables and a slab of fresh sourdough bread  - a loaf I bought  from the farmers' market.....I had already gouged out chunks of it in the car driving home, I was so hungry.

I feel so grateful for my privileged, warm and safe life...I keep thinking about the two people shrouded  in their sleeping bag homes, huddled in the doorway of the closed-down House of Fraser  store in the middle of Exeter High Street.

The young man I pass today is propped up against the wall, his feet sticking out onto the pavement. He  doesn't  have any socks on.

 Is it enough to be grateful for everything I have ...the richness of my life compared to his?

Is it enough to bless him in my mind....to pray for something better for him....and  not give him socks?

I never know the answer to this...I know feeling guilty, feeling bad isn't helpful to me or to him....but still it hurts me. 

The other day I took red tulips and striated Budleigh pebbles to Robin's grave. And  I imagine the new green slate stone which will replace this wooden cross...shabby now and sinking deeper into the red earth.

 I don't like thinking about him cold in the ground but sometimes my mind goes there like it does to other painful spots of memory....then remorse and guilt return to haunt me ...heavy as winter sky.

So I wait it out...let them crush me for a while ....and weep....till I let something better occur to me.

Tonight I notice the full moon is as clear and  bright as a winter sun behind clouds. And sleep will be elusive.