5:30 a.m. \ On The Other Side

Nancy: A dream, and slow rising light, and past and present and unexpected future, and out of that this day, this reality.

5:30 a.m.

bitter greens and fried pies

paw paws and fish sputtering

misty lake iron pan

Granny, Aunt Nannie, Papa

dawns noons twilight

and this is dawn

another dawn

I think of food

I think of being fed

how food is memory

how food is love

I'm still alive, I say

surprised

I'm still alive

shall we have tea?

Alan: When National Public Radio revived the old “This I Believe” program, among the short statements of faith was one that struck me as unarguably sensible: “I believe in biology.” 

On The Other Side

When it seemed clear you were dying

we could only live in the moment –

in and for it.

Death, which had always been invisibly with us,

became manifest now in the chairs,

the table, the rug: all the furnishings of our room.

We opened the door called “hope” and stepped through,

closing it gently behind us.

We saw we were in the same room as before.

The door had locked.  We could not go back.

So we took up our lives again,

moment by moment, as many moments as there might be –

there, here, there –

hope a door we could no longer open,

no longer had need for.