After Everything: A Poem
Originally written as a journal entry, this poem is a cry of gratitude for renewed joy after a lengthy season of sorrow.
What kind of gift is it when you love your life?
When you love it completely,
even while you hold the knowledge of
your own death closely?
Even when the reality of death is in
your very body, cohabitating with life?
When you have crawled over and over again
down the muddy meandering path
toward healing
after the crush of all that has broken you?
If after all this you learn to love again, then
you will love even more fiercely—but with clarity,
with freedom instead of fear,
and with sober joyful abandon.
