Dead leaf beauty. Photography by Noelle

Engulfed by grief I am driven to my knees, until back bent I am little more than a sapling in a hurricane.

Raging, fists to the sky with hunger for death in my heart I pace the hours certain of Divine betrayal. I am Shiva, Goddess of death. Blindly I plot tales of woe poor sirens must be calling to me from the deep. What wretchedness creeps into my soul as I tediously survey my faults, mistakes and missteps; no less a miser at his ledgers. There is no light. I am crawling in gravel up a mountain with no visible peak, but miles of trails that lead no where. I am confused. I am deluded. I am lost.

Still. Still. Time moves grief as a plowman’s mule. Bloodied knees always heal.

All wisps of smoke curling up into the ether now. Formless fog fading down the river of my life. The moment the last breath left my lungs it was already dead and gone, buried as my ancestors in dirt holes. Air fills the vacuum of my fading past, sweet and new.

When did I leave the bridge? What was the step that took me to the other side?

Kneeling to my sorrow now I dance to my joy. Swirling round and round free as the leaf floating on the current. The sorrow has ripped out my moorings it would seem. I drift with the river and worry not where it goes. I have already been where I could not go. With the hunger and vigor I gave freely to my rage I embrace the beauty of my life. I run with pounding heart captured by the power of my body no longer weighed by death and dark shadows. The mountain has gained no peak, but a fool’s laughter is heard along the trails.

Life, anyone’s life, is an endless sea of choices. Sing my hardy voice of love or hear it crack in the silence to a whisper.

Spit and shine, tarnish be gone. I am liquid silver, glinting in the sunlight.