terrypetersen

That’s the secret, love. It’s not about finding what you’re searching for…it’s about valuing what you find. (Reed Logan Westgate, The Infernal Games)

Time. I find so little of it lately. And yet, this poem, written four years ago, hits me as if I’d written it yesterday.

GENE’S WORDS—AT HIS OWN FUNERAL

My death started in January
when bare branches caressed snow
cold as my body.

My friend, the gentle priest,
stood at one end of the casket
and asked if he blessed my head or feet.

He didn’t know I laughed, hearing him
from the gnarled branches of a nearby tree,
where a bright, red cardinal and I

waited to fly together into new,
exciting places I would never be able
to explain to those left behind.

The priest had commented on my raucous
sense of humor. He paused, memory or imagination
filling in the blanks. Church space remained

reverent. Stifled laughs warmed my spirit, the chill 
of my body left behind. My eulogist spoke
about schizophrenia, paranoia. I carried 
 
the burden and pain. My friend said I 
was not my diagnosis. He mentioned
common moments. Coffee, killer cigarettes, picnics,

my volatile, unstable movements
as if they had been claps of thunder
during a hymn. Something that happens,

and can be embraced as part of a larger whole.
A woman reached one arm around her husband.
Their son held his infant daughter. I carried

the baby’s father as an infant. My cardinal 
companion flew upward. I followed.
A voice came from a light breaking through

the winter gray.  Your fear has been buried.
Come. I had never heard the voice.
Yet, I knew death had ended, a new life begun.

pic made from public domain photo and pastels

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