His Story

Myths are our own pronouncements of destiny
We are the myth-makers and our stories
Are our personal legends of the Fall, the Resurrection, and the Promised Land
These are all contained within a lifetime
Love and fear stand side-by-side
Angels, guarding the doors of Heaven
And Hell.

I live inside my history.
It becomes me as I become it.
But my myth is really my
Opportunity
A port, with an old sailor whistling
a tune on the dock
And he’s whistling an ode to the ferryman.

Because you cannot cross the river without Him.
And the ferryman is Death
Death of a loved one.
Death of a child.
Death of a relationship.
Walking into the valley of the shadow of Death
I descend into wholeness again
and start another cycle, a new age.

Where does my story begin and yours end?
Does it begin and end with
what I am able to know about you?
Sometimes you are completely transparent to me,
At other times dense as a doorknob.

Our stories slide one on top of the other
Creating innumerable opportunities
For the Eternal Truth to dart
Between the letters
Between the keystrokes
Between the lashes
Between the tweens
Between being able to catch yourself
at the moment you begin to imitate yourself
And between being afraid that you won’t.

I’ve tasted death enough times
to know that this body too will die.
Just as the stories of my life have been
willed and impelled and compelled
by the uncertain logic of who Me is,
this body too is a story,
a figment of a beautiful dream
and this body too must die.

But the eternal truth remains that I AM
neither story nor storyteller.