Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

I just love this poem, particularly the end.  I am feeling what i would describe as such a strong feminine urge, to hold, nurture, to love, to embrace that which is mortal.

Could it be that this desire to embrace what is mortal could, as this poem seems to suggest, take me to the other side, to salvation -- whatever that does mean, to peace, to bliss...

With every ounce of my being I know the consuming pain that comes with that embrace of the impermanent, the pain is absolutely unavoidable, but with the same intensity i know that I would dry up and die if i did not continue to reach out, to hold, to embrace all that is.

I am here to love, to live with passion, and to hold nothing back, I do not end with me...