Tag: passages

Rapture

Odd, this gift of solitude. Perched canal side, I affirm my connection to the earth, and offer thanks. Late afternoon sun casts a glow on the foliage across the way, lighting up the mirror-still water. Vibrant reflections.

Two winters ago, I fought to breathe as temperatures fell below zero.  Impassible walkways trapped me indoors.  Depression fought for possession. Hope struggles in imposed isolation.

“There are no absolutes in life,” a professor once told me, and I think of that now –
how just when it feels as if one sentence has been handed down, sealed, an opening appears.  I am fortunate, savour the moment.

Heron’s watchful stride
invites reflection, respect –
Winter’s solitude.

(Image my own.)

Souls Are Crossing Over

The night stars glitter over a city asleep,
while a dim light glows from a hospital bedside,
and a woman watches vigil over her dying husband.

Across town in a different medical center,
a thirty-something man squeezes his wife’s hand,
as she labours with the product of their love.

I lie awake, conscious of the irony of life,
anxiously awaiting news of passages:
one life ending while another begins.

I find myself wondering what lies beyond,
and whether they are not both experiencing
the loss of one life and the beginning of another.

What I do know for certain is this:
Lives, at this very moment, are changing,
irrevocably, for the better or the worse.

And that as my mother mourns her loss,
my daughter will be celebrating her gain –
grief and bliss will coexist within these walls.