THE WAY

The Narrow Path

That moment

that point of no return

when there is no one to save you

at the end of the yellow brick road

only you

your beating heart

the pure white of your true self

The strange thing is

you knew it all along—

but everything said:

if only, all I have to do is,

what will people think if?

The Upanishads speak:

“The ancient narrow path that stretches far away—

it has been touched by me, has been found by me.”

Have compassion

forgive yourself

let go despair and

grief unimaginable

all obstacles imagined

that made you stay so long

kept your world dim

created a void

built a wall

separated your heart from love

Look

above--the silver moon is rising over frozen fields

geese gather at the river

ready to take flight

At the edges of earth

waves are rolling to shore

as they have for thousands of years

Turn with courage

feel it become Light

fill the void

burn the nothing

become everything

The wall is shatter

the distance closed

You are on the ancient, narrow path

SYCAMORE

I want to be a Lady of the Sycamore—a sycamore in winter bare and luminous

white trunk standing straight—

serene among dry brown fields

branches spreading tall against the sky

misshapen into beauteous forms

unshaken against the wind.

I want my ashes to rest 

between two sycamore

at the eastern gate of heaven

the first rays of morning sun

greeting my grey earthly remains

warming the dark dust

beneath opulent, tormented arm

white and luminous 

offering sustenance to the dead.

                                   

MYSTERY MEN

For two days, I saw a Unabomber look-alike in a baggy orange sweatshirt wandering around restlessly through the halls of the hospice center where we each had a friend who lay dying. When we would pass each other I tried to see the words printed below an image of planet Earth, but couldn’t quite make them out. My eyes were drawn to his red MAGA hat over his wild, shaggy hair—reminding me of those clown hats with a wig attached. Around his neck was a heavy silver chain with a figure dangling from it.

    On the third day, at the coffee cart, Still unable to make out the words on his shirt, I asked him,  “So, who’s  the little shiny fella there?” pointing to the dangling figure on the silver chain around his neck.

    I learned that the figure was “St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes.” That says it all, I thought, but still haven’t figured out what the “all” was. Did he believe that America needed to be “great again,” but didn’t have much hope that it would happen, or was the lost cause his friend who, like mine, had no options left, except to wait for the grim reaper to swing his scythe?

  I misunderstood and asked, “But Judas isn’t a saint, is he?” that much I knew, but I got the wrong saint, or in this case, sinner.

“No, no, no. It’s St. Jude,” he had said sarcastically suggesting I should have known,“not Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus.

    “Oh, right that's who I was thinking of—for thirty pieces of silver, right?” I said.    

    “Exactly!"

     Exactly thirty pieces? I wondered. 

Just before I bit into my multi-grain muffin, I blurted out, "Well, they say no good deed goes unpunished.”

    “What do you mean, good deed? His was the greatest betrayal in the history of all the world.”

     "You mean the greatest catch 22” I corrected him this time, explaining, “if Judas hadn't turned his friend and teacher over to the Romans, Christ wouldn’t have 'died for our sins,' which was the intended plan all along, if I remember. So, they both ended up hanging from a tree, right?”

    “Yes,” he said, “but Jesus in victory and Judas in defeat.”

    “But…but...” Then I decided to put these mystery men, Jesus and Judas out of my mind. It was starting to feel like a sporting event.

    I poured the third mystery man a coffee, and passed him the cup. We stood eating our muffins in silence. Then, nodding to each other, we moved on into our respective friend’s rooms—to watch and wait at the foot of their beds.

My friend died that long evening, and I wept.

On my way out early that morning, I passed Mystery Man #3 coming down the hall. Our eyes met for a moment in a kind of farewell. As I looked one last time upon his orange sweatshirt, this time I was able to see the words below the image of our lonely, blue marble planet with an arrow pointing to the words: 

“YOU ARE HERE.”

MAY YOUR HEART BE LIGHT

There was to be a mandatory school Merry Christmas party after Sunday mass. Most mandatory events had never felt like a party or fun, held in the damp basement of the school, an old red brick building with a tall black iron fence around it and a paved over recess yard. I dreaded going, but knew I had to be there or there would be consequences. 

    School events were always mandatory, even Sunday mass which we had to attend with our class. Often we were called to "volunteer" for school events to collect coats, serve food, help set up or clean up. Fun? I don't think so. Sometimes parents were asked to donate food to be sold at a mandatory event and then families had to pay for the refreshments they themselves had provided.  

     On our way to our lessons in the morning we climbed the creaking wooden stairs and entered the high-ceilinged, spartan classrooms, white concrete block walls, desks anchored to the floor in straight rows, a cloakroom in the back and side and front blackboards. The  only color in the room was provided by the statues of the Blessed Mother or The Sacred Heart of Jesus. These were more sentinels than saints, part of whose purpose was for children to kneel before them to ask forgiveness for not knowing an answer, chewing gum, a sideways glance at another student, a fidget or a whisper. Such “penance” might come only after a swift, sharp whack of a ruler across the hands of the little offenders.

    All these associations, including that certain smell and a mood permeating the building were enough to make a child wonder if any activity at the school could be fun. Also, a child would wish to be at any event without fear, worry of accusations and/or humiliation, though I could not put all of this into words back then, but all of the above must have created a feeling of uneasiness and hesitation about attending another mandatory school event. 

    My idea of fun, if I could have thought in comparisoin/contrast mode, movement, color and light,  with games, music and a certain freedom to interact with one another, which might happen in the school yard before class, or at a brief recess after lunch. We might see a bright yellow dandelion growing up through a crack in the concrete and there were the blue sky and clouds above, under which we played, skipping, playing tag or jumping rope—until the nun standing watch rang the brass bell to call us into prayer before the afternoon lessons. All was regiment and requirement—including the mandatory Merry Christmas party.

    I cried on Friday afternoon when I got home when my mother told me I was to spend the weekend at my aunt’s house, which I also never thought of as a fun place, despite her fancy furniture and bottles of 7-up in the refrigerator. Not only would I be marked absent for the party, but also for Sunday mass. If I could have articulated it then, I would have said, "There will be blood!"

   "But, Mom, Mother Mary Canice said we have to go! please, please.”

    I don’t remember what my mother said in response to my plea, but it was also mandatory that I be left at my aunt’s musty smelling row house on Gratz Street in North Philadelphia. I cried all the way there, knowing there would be a reckoning on Monday in the third grade classroom. I cried again that night in the small spare room at the top of the stairs that doubled as a storage space of sorts. I was homesick and heartsick, surrounded by stacks of books and piles of clothes here and there. I stared at the tan wallpaper printed with red tennis rackets or at the ceiling, where strange shapes danced, illuminated by the streetlight shining in from the window facing the alley behind the house. 

    I don’t remember what else happened that weekend or the trip back home,  but I would never forget  what happened on Monday morning. 

    Seated at her desk our stern nun, who at some point had grown a cold stone in place of a heart, held in one hand a short list of the children who had not attended mass and/or the fun event. It was literally a “hit” list as it turned out, which became apparent when she began to call the names of children, who (for whatever reason) were "no shows."  In her other hand she wielded what she often referred to as her “buddy,” a metal ruler. One by one, my classmates were called to stand beside her. James went first, then Ann Marie, then Rosalie—all disappeared behind the desk as she turned them over her lap, and the whacks began. I knew I was last according to alphabetical order.

    As I walked up to the desk, I looked to the stature of Mary in the corner whose face shone down in kindness. I lay face down across a lap over the nun's black garments. She lifted my school uniform, pulled down my underwear to meet out my punishment for not attending and having fun at the Merry Christmas party.  

    I kept my eyes Mary's countenance, and, with each strike, I quietly said one of her beautiful names chanted at the church alter in the litany of saints in honor of the loving Holy Mary Mother of God, to which the children responded, "Pray for us."

    Tower of Ivory

    Joy of the Just

    Comforter of the Afflicted

    Mirror of Justice

    Mother of Sorrows

    Cause of Our Joy

AMEN

ME TOO

From across the room Sarah recognized the young woman sitting with him at a table in a dimly-it corner of the restaurant. She knew she would find him here, but didn’t expect to see the girl whom she had often wondered about during her absence—wondered if she or others, known and unknown, were being exploited, controlled, and abused, as she had been. Two years had passed since she had seen either one of them. He was the reason she had left town, and now, the reason she had returned, with a capacity she did not have as a child of seven years old when it all began--courage.

She sat calmly at first, strengthened by the knowledge that something was to be done, something she had set into motion that would expose him. So many thoughts, feelings and fears filled her mind and heart. But anger was the motivator that would transform into courage to take action. The fire of anger building over years of humiliation, shame, confusion and despair was now now the burning courage to confront him, and to save her friend if she could. 

Now she stood fueled with that courage and walked over to the corner table. She wanted to scream, to rage, but being in a public place, part of her strategy, and having prepared for so long for this moment, she knew that she must act and speak out of that center of courage, of certainty to stand her ground. The calm of utter certainty expressed in her whole being was what was needed  to free finally free herself, and her friend and maybe others. She took a deep breath, determined to moderate at least her voice, though her eyes belied the calm when she looked upon the face of the predetor, the thief who stole her childhood.

"I remember you."  He was startled at the interuption and did not recognize her at first.  “Doing the same thing to her that you did to me?” Then to her young friend, whose face was inscrutibly blank, and not quite present--almost in a trance-like state. “Come, let' go for a walk now, and you will be safe, I promise.” 

“Who are you?” You have no business...." he spoke, as if she were a stranger, but his eyes and his nervous gestures also revealed that he knew exactly who she was and that he would, for the first time in his life be accountable.

“Sarah, what are you doing here? Where have you been?” the younger woman seemed to awaken in that moment to her friend who had disappeared without a word of why or a goodbye.

“You’d better leave right now, or I’ll call the police,” he demanded, but already the young woman had gotten up to stand beside her long-lost friend who put an arm around her shoulder. It was the first time in her life she had felt someone saw, knew and would protect and defend her. 

"Oh, they have already been called." and the case is in the works, so go home alone, and wait for all the others to come forward who also remember who and what you are and have done to them."

The two women looked at each other deep and long in silence, with the knowledge of what the other had experienced. They felt an unfamiliar strength in the invisible bond now forged between them—and a bridge formed to somewhere else that they would cross together. 

“You too?” the young woman asked, now in tears.

“Me too.” But no more! We are free now."

“Sit back down,” he commanded the young woman, but already his power had shattered the illusion that her fate was sealed. Never again would he be able to control either of the women he had manipulated and abused, but, nevertheless would endure the life-long effects of what what they had experienced. Still, now there was a way toward healing, recovey--and  most of all no longer captives.

“We are in a public place now, not like when we were kids and you could get away with it.” Sarah, reeling and feeling faint to think of the past and of how many others, and for how many years. 

“You have a great imagination it seems, or maybe your fantasies? I don’t even know who you are.” 

“Well, we know who and what you are.  "No, not my imagination or fantasy, but yours--now exposed. Now it is out in the light of day and there will be a reckoning. It's over."

Sarah gently pulled the young woman closer to her, guiding her away from the table, and wondered how many others would come forward with the investigation that was well underway, but she couldn’t think about that now. It was time to turn away from the past and cross that long bridge--one step at a time.

The younger woman began to cry, at first softly, then as if gasping for breath. When they emerged into the clear night air, her whole body convulsed in waves of cold pain and dark shame. Walking along the tree-lined street. Sarah, also in tears looked to the stars peeking through the black branches silhouetted against the sky, clouds at the horizon luminous as the full moon bared its face behind them--silver linings against the dark heavens.

The sobs subsided into quiet breathing. Together the woman felt the promise of calm after a storm--and a feeling of light and warmth that might slowly, if never fully, eclipse the dark and cold and now--something completely new—something never before known or even imagined: HOPE.