I watched them on the dance floor, these two, marveling at their movement to the beat. The music seemed to flow through them rather than to them. He glided across the floor, his hand on her waist. Effortless. She anticipated his next move, even reveled in it. The third beat of every measure was captured by body emphasis. A dip here, a pause there, but deliberate, purposeful, calculated, yet utterly natural, as if there were something rising internally, like a waterfall, from another source, expressing itself by overflowing. Was this some gift, some hidden language? I found my upper torso swaying to the cadence, the palpable pulse reverberating through the air, bouncing upon my eardrums. The room revolved around them as they remained lost in another world.

Seems to me this couple had rhythm.

I watched from my porch. Here it came, once again. That great, fiery, gorgeous ball, rising like a behemoth from the grave, casting his rays upon the mortal world, declaring his presence, once again. Like clockwork, as if listening to a cosmological drummer beckoning the band members to their stations. Rising in the east, setting in the west. Rising in the east, setting in the west. At the edge of the forest, third limb up a white oak, a feathered creation, the Red-eyed Vireo, croons his melody, “Here I am, where are you?….here I am, where are you?…”

A white-tailed deer scampers across the Milton Field, his hooves virtually running on air, the fore and hind legs churning with the beat, “bada bap, bada bap, bada bap…”

As I write this, a large muscle the size of my fist, embedded deep within my chest contracts and releases, contracts and releases, every three fourths of a second through no conscious decision of my own. It has for the last 58 years. “Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump.”

Seems to me God has rhythm.

REX ALPHIN of Walters is a farmer, businessman, author, county supervisor and contributing columnist for The Tidewater News. His email address is rexalphin@aol.com.