The Fossil Beds
Oh, to think back on the sweet memory,
Grand held the hand of the child, Kimber Lea.
She took us down early, at dawn, I remember,
I was a little bit older than Kimber.
We called the river Braunsburn: The Falls of the fossil-bed caves,
The water was rapidly flowing, and slamming the rocks with waves.
The wind freed our hair from its binding and made it a struggle to stand,
We children were up for adventure with our Lady Mother Grand.
The sparse trees were growing in all sort of angles,
Tangles of roots in the long wall of rock,
It flooded in seasons when men down the river,
Managed the flow by releasing the lock.
On other occasions they dammed up the river,
Restricting its power as best as they could,
Fierce and untamed, though they meant to control it,
Muddy and deep, floating pieces of wood.
The dam was constructed to govern the water…
And Grand was instructed to counsel her daughter…
Down the deep fossil walls into the river bed, numerous pools on the rugged depression,
Grand was instructing by lifting each rock and looking intently for signs of impression,
Pictures of animals pressed in the stones,
We’d been collecting the finest and best,
Looking back now, I see that my Grand thought,
Of time with her girls as the thing to invest.
So we gathered our fossils and climbed on the boulders,
And placed them in bags that were hung from our shoulders.
Sitting by Grand on the rocks in the sunshine, she brought up the subject: her love for the Prince…
She looked in my eyes and began, so sincerely,
This from a woman I knew loved me dearly.
Professing His Presence…”He came to me, Catherine. Just like the fossil, embedded His prints.”
Something intense in her tone and her way,
…as if there was more she was trying to say.
“Embedded sensation of Him, and no other, deep stone impressions when tragedy came.
At first I was blind and passed over His mark-
His way took a shape. I was never the same.”
Kimber, disinterested, climbed up a boulder.
I sat there with Grand, just a little bit older.
Sitting in honor, veiled to the teaching, open to all of the love she could give,
But there was a message, from her heart to mine, I learn of its value the longer I live.
“Catie” she called me…”My beautiful angel,
Take up your lantern and shine like the stars,
You do have a light. It is goodness and kindness...
But the Prince has a Light that is greater than ours.
Look at my lantern.”
She held it before me.
She held it up high, way over my head.
“Notice the Light that is held in the glass?
When I was a child, it used to burn red”…
Red! That was funny.
She smiled. So I smiled.
“Really?”
“oh, yes!” And she smiled once again.
“My lantern burned red until I was grown up.
My mother thought I was a gypsy back then.”
She smiled. So I smiled…
And I looked at the Light in the rusty, old glass that my Grand lifted up,
“Your red light is gone, Grand.”
“How true, Catiebeth. This is the King’s Light. I’ve taken His cup.
I opened my lantern and blew the red out!”
She blew her flame out????
At that very moment, we heard Kimber shout…
“Help me! She screamed…and my moment with Grand-
Was lost to the cry of my sister’s demand.
Kimber Lea stumbled and twisted her ankle…explosion of drama. The moment was gone.
But it was enough- the Legacy Love: The lesson on Light. For Grand passed it on.
And we rescued Kimber, who’d tripped on her skirts,
Expressing concern for her numerous hurts…
How little she was, she was ten, I remember.
I cried when she cried: it was like that with Kimber.
We half carried Kimber…we tackled each boulder…
And it was an honor to give her my shoulder.