Somewhere in southern Missouri,
in a place of trees and hills and stone-bed rivers,
she’ll wake up with a slight shiver
and the mists of morning,
a slight fog forming in the tops of trees
and weaving its way
down into the thicker shroud of the valley.

I’ll be driving from southern Kansas
up through the Flint Hills
and into Topeka.

While she’s riding a chocolate gelding
along those steep and winding paths
I’ll be participating in a different melding,
a meeting of minds so to speak
from across the state,
college executives hoping to weave our way
through the chances and challenges
of academic issues.

Across these miles between us
there are still good things
that seam us together along the even edges
we have formed over the years.

Like stones smoothed by years of strong currents,
fitted together in a channel that has known flood and drought,
we’ve had our bouts of ache and flourish.

And now we find ourselves together
two hundred miles apart,
both of us living dreams
that we thought buried years ago.

Though it may sometimes simmer,
the fire of faith will always find some way
to bring its own glow to the light of day,

and find itself nourished
by the God Who Loves Us.

H. Arnett
10/15/15