If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden's dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.
The serpentine path was the path of my life, a snakelike, meandering path, winding in and out, up and down. The antithesis of the "straight and narrow." A path that does not ever "come to a point." Two steps left, two steps right. Into the darkness, into the light. Not a goal, but the journey... . I did not know who or what might be ahead on the serpentine path, but I felt a sense of eagerness and anticipation. The dance is about to begin. The dance of my life. It begins anew every day.
