Do you see
the wounds on arms?
Is forgiveness revealed?
Has polarity forged a path—
a space between to dance?
When we shut our doors
and close access to ourselves
for those we love,
it’s not because we
fear them.
It is because
we fear ourselves.
We lace our secrets with poison
to prevent them from
sprouting into the light,
hoping they’ll die.
The shameful feeling
of our past choices haunts us,
for we have not learned
the lessons,
and have not changed
and grown,
to realize what
we’ve become.
Thinking of others,
knowing myself,
a life is lived.
I arrived naked,
and I’m leaving naked.
What we hear
is what we get.
Not perfect
without imperfections
and mistakes.
Complete and
wholesome by trial.
I strived for kindness
and love.
Accepted both my challenges
and my gifts.
I met magical people—
each, a teacher.
Misunderstood, I walked.
Welcomed but not embraced.
Pick up your true relationship,
and throw it up
towards the light.
Step outside your box,
and into the free
open horizon.
Rise from beneath the earth
to soar above.
It will lift you up
by its strings
that are bonded
with you.
At the end of this excursion
and its expedition of light,
Death prowls in
with a cordial welcome.
Like an amiable, genial host
for all of us who instinctively
and involuntarily
receive his faded invitation
at the moment of our birth.
His long-anticipated alleviation
comes startlingly,
only to hit us
with the certainty
of a sacred approach.
As we emerge
into his loyal audience,
and he into our past,
our new navigator.
We instantly exit
and we enter,
another ingredient
of who we are.
—The cook prepares the feast—
The clarity
of this new mode announces
the fearless recurrence
with jubilation.
I will not resist.
I forgive myself.