She dreams of the ridiculousness of human life,
How often so little was at stake. Overdrafts.
Overdue library books. Number of likes on Facebook.
Up here, that’s what the larger things
Are too: the wars, the dinosaurs, the new planets.
Since goodness does not have a particular body,
Here are the sick, the afflicted, the miraculous, the maimed.
They are purer than the rest, more distilled.
They are no longer sick, or suffering, or shaking
With Parkinson’s, or zipping by on a city sidewalk
In a wheelchair. There’s no smelly vestige of a song.
She leans against the white puffy sleeping bag of an idea
And knows she is ready for something:
For someone at a slumber party to contact her
Via a Ouija board, so that she can say, We love you.
Aunt Harriet is fine. Wide, delicious eyes in the dark.
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When I read this it took my breath away. October 2017 I sat in a hotel room contemplating suicide. The paIn, (I will always spell pain with a capital I because pain makes me focus solely on myself), was of such magnitude I was blinded by the realities of life and the absence of hope. Yes, my view turned heavenward and I saw solice and felt an assurance I would be welcomed home. Any thoughts or recriminations or guilt or shame were absent from my mind. The finger-pointing of my religious language and beliefs were totally absolved and dissolved into the abyss of the brokenness of my heart and the desecration of my spirit. I never would have thought another human being on this side of heaven would have a knowledge of The defining moment of my entire life. I think of Apostle Paul who sat in prison knowing he would be executed in the most painful way possible. He posed the question shall I die and leave this eart or shall I stay here with you. He chose to stay and write and spread the gospel as long as he could as far as he could. On that day in that hotel room I met the true and living God of the present who heard my cry and held me close to His heart and led me back from that ledge of decision to life but not just life as I had known it but life my abundant. Thank you for your words.
Thank you, Kim, for this wonderful poem. It’s one I’ll return to.