Donna Buck

Colors of Light

Evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.
~ Wally Lamb

There it is again, the damned sciatica. So much for my momentum at the gym. But I know the drill. Ice and heat. Massage. Stretch, stretch. And Minerva, my acupuncturist. She tells me to meditate on a pain-free color. It’s red at the moment, hot stabs from butt to calf. So I imagine white; a white light cocoon. I will be swathed in white. I cannot feel the needles; she is good. She talks quietly as she works. She needs a lot more this time and I need more white.

Red-white, red-white, the neon lights of pain. So I meditate; it is hard to write standing up. It only lasts a few weeks this time. Today the salty sweat from my workout is an elixir. I decide to plan a camping trip. Should I go for a hike? I am giddy with possibility. There is so much white space. I can smell the sweet scent of the basil growing in my garden pot. The song of meadowlarks from across the hills. White-white-white; white-white.

Cottonwood Springs –
in a rock crevice,
one nolina bloom