Surviving the Path

I wrote this some time ago at the time I received that dire diagnosis. My thoughts turn again to this poem as I face my upcoming, eighteen month, after the fact, test on the ninth of this month. I look forward positively to this milestone because, Heather, a raven flew over my house this morning and told me that all will be well. The poem though is a reminder that we are all vulnerable to the evil around us.

Surviving the Path

I return from the edge
on a path strewn with boulders
with so many twists,
so many turns.
I lose my way
while searching
for sunny places.
But, I remain lost
in gloomy traces
where damp and decay
grasp my fragility
and hold it
until,
I shake it lose
and run to the light
where,
breathless and terrified
I lie in the sun,
until,
the shadows creep
toward me again.
Of all the paths,
this is the one
that brought me from there
to this,
my dark, cluttered tower
on a path strewn with sorrow,
three steps forward,
two back.

As I hurry along,
the meandering path,
I see not what awaits
around the next shadowed bend—
Branches reach for my face,
ferns grasp for my ankles.
I fall,
face down in the muck,
but I manage to rise,
holding on to the hope
that I’ll survive till tomorrow,
till next week,
next year,
holding on to the hope
that I can survive
the rest of my life.

Vi Jones
©March 3, 2006