Aurora 2021 Mag

Catherine Altimari

Wondering

The day the teacher wrote eternity, and heaven on the board, he wore a white shirt with a blue tie— like a cloud-filled sky, with just enough blue to make me think of God’s presence, the vastness of forever, and an ethereal, beautiful place— as hard to grasp, as a sky formed from invisible gases. Then dark clouds gathered outside the classroom, and rain poured down— shifting my thoughts to hard drops hitting my little sister’s grave at St. Joseph Cemetery. I wondered if the teacher ever imagined himself, standing on one foot, at the edge

of a cliff—as he listened to his own words of hope echo, echo, echo, then fade…

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