Pick your poet, find your line. My friends have been pointing me to resources lately, some well-known, others obscure. As my eyes drift over these recommended pages, seeking comfort, the words start to blur and my mind races away on its own trajectory. At these moments, other poets enter the room. Tonight, driving through this warm, windy city, with a loud street fair dominating my neighborhood, it was Mr. Bob Zimmerman:
"Seen a shootin' star tonight,
And I thought of you.
You're tryin' to break into another world,
A world I never knew."
And, later:
"Guess it's too late to say the things to you,
You needed me to say,
Seen a shootin' star tonight,
Slip away."
I used to like to compare the journey my friend and I undertook late in 2004 with the movie based on Oliver Sacks' book, "Awakenings." It was as if we both had been asleep for a long time, when we met each other, awoke, and joined the world -- for a while.
Today, I ran into a friend who knew us both when we met, and she called my friend a "butterfly."
Whether she is a shooting star slipping away, or a butterfly fluttering away, what is not happening to her is a reversal to her state two years ago. She is not asleep, but very much engaged, trying to help people who need her help badly.
That's who I need to become again, too. One engaged in the world, not withdrawing from it.
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