In Memoriam

I underestimate your power.
A great and terrible beauty
Hides the shadow side
Where cold paths and sharp cliffs
House anguish.
I can love you still.
But now your often icy fingers
Grip tight my ribs.
Your majesty
Tensely sits with sadness in my soul.
Each happy step followed
By one darkened with despair.
“Going to the mountain is going home,”
Now a home with empty rooms
Alongside ones full of
Wonder.
A home changed upon returning
By pain and loss
But comforting
Nonetheless.


The Lenten Season is the last desperate, shockingly strong embrace of winter before it weakens and slips into Spring. Not just in the natural realm but in the realm of my soul. I struggle every year to remember that days will grow longer and that darkness possesses beauty. In my life's calendar, this has become the season of loss. Loss of friends. Loss of family. And, as is often the case, loss is woven closely together with discovery and connection. All of the loss I have experienced holds a similar light - the light of love for nature in all her complex delicacy and ruggedness, peace and destruction.