a very dear friend’s birthday was yesterday. he sent me this achingly beautiful poem
many years ago. now illness is gradually taking him away from us, and i felt a strong
need to find it and send it back to him now. for me, it creates the same overwhelming
sadness and sense of grieving now, as it did so long ago….
-In Blackwater Woods-
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black rivers of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
i am sorry i dont know author’s name, but this is attributed to him or her… with deep gratitude.
God Bless, Ray…
vty, Joanne