NEW REALITY

For 52 years we sang our song:

In harmony and in dissonance,

In prosperity and poverty,

In sickness and health, we did our dance.

I confess it's tough to sing solo;

Your dear, clear voice anchored me on key.

But even mainstays can't endure

When Time gives way to Eternity.

My task is to learn to harmonize

With solitary reality.

I'm grateful you patterned the freedom

That allows me to sing authentically.

You can rest assured, my Beloved.

I am at home within my soul,

Joyful in Love, in community.

Just like you, I'm at One with the Whole.

I wrote an epilogue to my book to let readers know that Fred and Suzanne had passed in the years following the book's slice of life. This is the poem I chose with which to introduce this final bit.

It's finished. I've sent my approval for the final edit. Now I'm waiting. Pins and needles.

  

LABYRINTH

Come, it is a miracle!

A tortuous passage, yet clearly marked,

That recalls our Journey.

The journey that began in a time/place when/where

We and they and all of space-time were together in one tiny center,

All potentiality.

Winding toward the center,

Mundane orientation falls away.

The Minotaur waits to devour dark daily habits.

A new realm reached, I'm delivered to my own sacred story,

Circling out like Ariadne's thread,

Secrets totally revealed.

From the still point at center,

All my relations gather round and dance,

Rippling out like water from the place through which

I have fallen into dark radiance.

Blinded, now I see clearly what to leave behind

 For the moment, I rest safe. Secure in Now.

The moment delivers me back to awareness

 Of sweet Earth's support, bearing me all my life.

Here I undertake to pursue the outward path,

Lightly, dancing unburdened as I return,

Prepared to meet the challenge that waits:

To serve the immense Journey.

So my book is at the publisher's. In the last 2 weeks, I've added an introduction, dedication, acknowledgements, an epilogue. Oh, and a new title. It's so exciting I'm having a hard time getting to sleep at night.

The above poem introduces the Introduction :) The book's title has been Passage: Illness as Initiation. Now it's Illness as Initiation: An Unlikely Heroine's Journey. For better or worse, I decided there had been too many Passage titles in the last few years. The labyrinth is a foundational image for the work.