A Poem for Maureen

A Poem for Maureen


I had slept on the lower hall couch,
It raining so hard as to wash away the world
  As night summer thunders often do

Waking when the rain had stopped, all others in bed,
  It was up to my cabin in the woods I head,
Deep in the woods and up the hill
  Out the kitchen door, over the meadow path,
Where only dripping trees remained
   Of Nature’s past torrential wrath

Without a moon, without the stars,
  No flashlight in my hand,
I tread uphill with caution, touching toe
  First to find a rock or sand,
As I must keep upon the path,
  Within its trodden well walked band

Until I found that I was off,
  My foot before told me the ground fell off,
As I was on the edge of a crevasse,
  The depth of which I could not know,

So I stood,

No natural or manmade light,
  Only about me total night,
As if it was in space I stood,
  And not within a mountain wood

And I float,

Unsure even which way was up
As I was flying in a Bardo,
  A senseless place, not life nor death,
Where mindless fears, imagined demons,
  All walk and rule unnatural space

Out of my mind

For they cannot be real,
  Here in this place where I can’t feel
Except these rampant fears unkind
  That I brought here within my mind

Outside of time

For how long I stood there …
  All I was was unknowing,
All I was was unmeasurable
  Unstaked black distance from a death to new life,
The latter of which marked when for no reason,
  Maureen,
You flipped the switch on your cabin porch light

And I was reborn

Back in the world, dispelled of the night,
It’s said the mindful pick their mothers,
  Would I had a choice, I’d pick no other,
For your kindness brought me back to life,
  You made my world, you gave me sight