The next several weeks dragged by slow, and painfully for Jules. She started getting up earlier in the mornings to work out and make a healthy breakfast. All of the lifting, pushing, and caring for Duncan that she did was wearing out her mind more than anything else. She tried to set aside time each day to take a walk while Duncan was sleeping in the afternoons. She always looked forward to this time to let her mind wind down and relax, but it wasn't always enough.

Legion of Honor
It's wrapped in coastal winds and cypress trees,
  With lions guarding entrance to the court.
  Inside, they serve up tea and apricot tarts,
Between glass clad in mist from neighboring seas.
Degas' love of Parisian millinery
  Ripples among the walls of light and dark:
  Illuminated portraits, girls in sharp
Well-flowered, feathered hats in velvet sheen.
Around the corner, see a more ancient hall:
  An ibis-headed man in frozen gait,
Cartouche and hieroglyphics on a wall,

In Echoing Halls
What is this room, replete with crucifixions,
Nativities, a dozen "Madonna-and-Child"'s?
The Renaissance. Who else shows Roman soldiers
In full knight's armor, Mary in Italian gown?
But note that sparkling reflection -
The gilded Bethlehem Star
Echoed in gilt embroidered dresses
And haloes framing faces, eyes cast down,
Or else lifted with hands towards heaven's heights.

here i am, Lord, hear my plea
broken deeply, never free
lacking strength to even come
hither to Thy throne above.

wretched sinner, such as i
will you take me, here, tonight
save a sinner, mend a soul
will You make my shattered whole?

splintering my hardened heart
splitting shackles clean apart
cleansing my will to be Thine,
will You rest a wearied mind?

will You turn this life around
hell to heaven, skies from ground
turning night to brightest Day
will you lift me, now, today?

Francis Schaeffer wrote Art and the Bible in response to an attitude running through the church that troubled him: Christians were shying away from the arts.

There were other things, too: pastors preaching to their congregations in King James English. Christians certain that rock music and abstract art were less holy styles than the music and paintings of the past. Concerns that an emphasis on beauty was shallow or that artistic pieces could fuel idolatry.

Summer
Wading through waist deep foxtails (swept
by the brooms
of the wind) she
could smell their gold on siroccos
wafting up in mirage creating waves.

Not a cloud
in the sky, or a
bird
in the air
but that one lone black old vulture
his wingspan a man's height across.

Art Exhibit
fallen blue leaves
translucent glass
scattered on a table
illuminated

rest breathlessly
upon white cloth
still, cold
as glass

Today, another brushstroke;
The artist poised,
With ever trembling pencil in his hand;
A rough, uneven canvas;
And so he sighs,
His strokes are like the shifting sand

Somehow the tones are different,
The picture wrong
The first intent somehow misplaced;
And though he tries with patience
He cannot claim
The lines which he first proudly traced

(Wrote this after reading Ky's post about dancing. Unedited so it's probably got a bunch of mistakes but oh well. Just some thoughts and refelctions on my part.)