A cross of ash on my forehead
I enter the emergency room
seeking my friend, Lyn.
I don't know if the intake person looks quizzical because of the ashes or my inquiry about Lyn's mother, Wayne, her lifetime weighted with a man's name.
I find Lyn in a tiny, gritty room, Wayne deceased on a gurney, her 86-year-old body blanketed, her white hair haloing her face.
Earlier, on the drive to church, clouds softly pillowed blue and pink, soon to dissolve dark.
I whisper Impermanence, it is all impermanence. Lyn, that moment, in her car, carrying her mother to the hospital.
As I inhaled sunset, Wayne exhaled.
a poem for Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday in Lent 2016
by Rachel Horsley
Photo by Danny Hassell
I don't know if the intake person looks quizzical because of the ashes or my inquiry about Lyn's mother, Wayne, her lifetime weighted with a man's name.
I find Lyn in a tiny, gritty room, Wayne deceased on a gurney, her 86-year-old body blanketed, her white hair haloing her face.
Earlier, on the drive to church, clouds softly pillowed blue and pink, soon to dissolve dark.
I whisper Impermanence, it is all impermanence. Lyn, that moment, in her car, carrying her mother to the hospital.
As I inhaled sunset, Wayne exhaled.
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