Sunday, March 29, 2020
A Twist in the Road––Poem by Dorothy
A Twist in the Road
One day there was a twist
or turning in the road
and after that
I was no longer
part of the crowd.
Although to be quite honest
I had never been part
of any crowd or group
or gathering.
Because I always knew
that I was different,
set apart as if
there was something wrong
with me,
a birth defect,
an incapacity that I had
no name for,
that I compensated for
by the knowing itself,
and thus defined myself
as the unfortunate other,
homeless in the sense
of one who has no home,
just a restless discomfort,
never fully assuaged.
Dante said, "Midway in the journey of our life
I found myself lost in a dark wood,"
and thus began his story of his
long journey home,
arrival at the place
where the angels danced,
where the air smelled
of a sweetness
like honey made by
sacred bees,
like perfume manufactured
by the apprentice gods
learning to be holy.
His journey took years (metaphorically),
lifetimes maybe,
but mine took only seconds,
or seemed to make a transition
from one state to the next
in the famous blink of
the famous eye,
and left me stunned,
immersed in rapture
before I had time
to name it or wonder
about it,
I knew only
that I was being overwhelmed
by an unknown force,
commanded by love
to release all remorse
and regret
and simply be
that which was happening
from which I could never return.
And now I was outside
the outsiders,
alien among aliens,
stranger even to that reality
of suffering I had claimed
as my own.
And so I became other,
both witness and alchemical subject,
experiment in progress
and new being in love with
and loved by the invisible,
nameless suitor,
self rediscovered at last.
Dorothy Walters
March 29, 2020
