Still

That month before the baby comes
the world waits with bated breath
and on you go, like normal, knowing
that normal cannot last;
the pause will end, you know,
the lapse between the lives;
before and after so disresemble one another
as sometimes siblings do.

You know that pause?
While God holds fixed his baton
with fingers lightly pinched
before the crash, the entrance,
the next movement in the cacophonous symphony of our lives?

Well,
hold
that
fermata.

For months on end.
Without sight of end.
Without a timeline, that,
be it love or loss,
will deliver.

And so, we wait,
knowing that our Lord,
who has conducted better groups than us,
will make His entrance at the proper time,
and though we lose the beat,
He has it.
In His mind and in His hand.
And the baton will come down
in His time.