Michael Barfield, at Kerry’s apartment long long ago
A salt-water aquarium lies just outside the photo margin on the right… the Commodore 64 keyboard perches on the aquarium stand… and plugs into the TV… with rabbit ears… The arm of my green reading chair, which I still have, in the lower right… All the pottery, each with a story, like the blown glass green vase from Jamestown in the upper left… A tall mug for IBC Root Beer… What were we doing with that hammer anyway? A world map just because. Files for all kinds of topics in the metal cabinet… An old white desk I had used for always… Top-of-the-line headphones plugged into the cassette player because I couldn’t afford quality speakers… My best friend, then and now, doing magic on the guitar in my own living room.
During a night vigil, thoughts move naturally to good memories, so in the early morning hours I was glad to find this photo. Not because the photo is artistically composed or skillfully shot — ha! far from it — but because every detail evokes its time and season in my life, and the faithfulness of God through the many years since.
Our lives flow on in endless song
above earth’s lamentation:
We catch the sweet, though far off, hymn
that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife,
We hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in the soul —
how can we keep from singing?
We have a Magruder Lassies hymn medley looping.
