Beltane Emergence Moon
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. Mary Oliver, Blackwater Woods
This life here. This land. These friends. The memories. All mortal. And I love them all. For forty years I have held this life, in its glad moments and its sad ones, against my bones, knowing I did depend on it. For twenty years I have held this land and the life here with Kate against my bones knowing I depended on both of them. For twenty-five plus years I have held the Woollies and Kate against my bones knowing my life depended on them. The dogs, too. Later, the docents, friends from the Sierra Club and elsewhere. All against my bones.
Now, and here is the gray cloud lying close to my mental ground, the ravens and the crows flying there, the catafalque. The weight. The heaviness. The mudstuck boots. Now, the time has come to let them go. All but Kate and the dogs.
No, of course there will be times. Times back here. Times together. Moments driving down the same streets, sitting in the same homes. But then as a visitor, a man from far away. No longer here. But there.
Mary says when the time comes, let them go. Yes. I’m doing that. She didn’t say anything about being glad. And I’m not. I’m sad in the deepest reaches of my bones. But, it is time, and I will let them all go.
