Poem: Embers
"Embers" is the third and final poem in a series of three poems about winter. The first two are "Osiris" and "Teresa."
Body, where did you go? You fall when you run because your feet are numb. Your hand cannot write when its fingers are locked, frozen like white forests, the silent stillness of the fields blanketed with grace though death is underneath. No branch, no root, no man is free from this strange Paschal mystery. Soul, where did you go? Your mind cannot think if your heart cannot feel, Your heart cannot beat if your mind killed the Real, frozen in your memories, long drives and midnight lights, filled with fire and passion, now just cloaked in apathy's cold. No mind, no heart, no man is free of the river's unfolding mystery. Spirit, winter has no hold. The body is numb but your embers give light. The soul is cold but you still burn through the night, like the earth and its core, beneath the shell and its ice, beneath the mantle and its chaos; though we might destroy, you burn through wars. No body, no soul, no man is free of the madness within that beckons spring. Soul, welcome home, Your heart cannot love without breaking. Your mind can't transform without unknowing. Oh, sweet liminality -- the dark night, a gateway; the winter, incubation. Life is always transitioning, but living is integration. "To live and fully accept our reality" is where scars become strengths and death loses its sting. Body, welcome home, Your feet will not fail beneath the wind of Love.
Your hands will create when aware of your gloves,
the life-source flowing through --
the blood that saves and flows and frees,
the particles of atoms and the space in between --
dancing like colors in seasons that change.
Body, soul, spirit; Father, Spirit, Son,
A life of passion and death and resurrection.
By Stephen Copeland
This article was first published on copelandwrites.com.
