I’m visiting ancestral lands, and part of this particular trip has involved sorting through the last of my things in my father’s house, which will be put up for sale in spring 2013. It’s been an emotional few days. I may write at more length on the process later, or I may not.
I found this poem by my grandmother in the front pages of a folder full f my grandfather’s coin collection, and thought it appropriate to share here.
CHANGING HORIZONS
Shed no tears for me
when I have taken that giant leap
over the earthly wall of being
to where new horizons beckon —
a new world which you one day
will come to share and be (as I)
a part of that great spirit, heart,
who resting rod on stormy winds,
the stormy broken heart,
commands grief to peace and silence,
prism-spectred joy.
Smile then for know
that I have broken fleshy ties
and slipped, perhaps ungently,
over the sharp rim of the earth
to new being in that now fairest
of all lands beyond the fret
of unknown and uncharted oceans.
-Mildred Rose
November, 1977
Lovely poem. Thanks for sharing, Kathryn. Sorting through parental stuff is always an emotional time. Blessings on you and the rest of your stay in the ancestral lands.