crosses

Hundreds of lights glowed in rows along the hillside, the tidy street lamps of the tucked away neighborhoods. But, they didn’t look like lights or even starbursts in the pre-dawn darkness of my travels. They shone clearly as crosses. Crosses. Hundreds of them. Was it a sign? Was I on the wrong path? Was I on the right path? Was it just my tired eyes once again playing tricks on me?

It wouldn’t have been the first time.

As I drew nearer the crosses became clearer. Beacons of light burning in the night, burning away the darkness.

My breath stuck in my throat and my blood raced. Was I witnessing a miracle? Had sleep deprivation finally driven me crazy?

Perhaps either was likely. The road turned away from the hill-nestled neighborhood and the vision disappeared. Eventually my pulse slowed and I breathed normally again. Eventually the memory of those moments will fade away, returning to the darkness. Eventually even these words will be lost.

That’s as it should be.

The fleeting nature of things makes them more beautiful, from a tired vision of street lights turned crosses on a morning commute to a silly handful of words grasping at finding deeper meaning…