The day Alice looked out onto the body
Lying down below
She realized she was dead.
She had been floating in the gray in-between
Of mist and nothingness
A threshold the pale azure sky could not reach.
All around and above there was
This indecisive sky but for her there was
Only a gray mist
A threshold she hovered over.
All around there were people she knew
Some were family members once
She had loved and had loved her.
And yet, for all their comings and goings,
Their subdued crying and sniffing,
She felt but a sense of liberation.
She was dead. Yes.
Yet, death was the threshold that ushered
Her in another cycle, another dimension
Altogether.
She could see all of them
But they could not see her.
And she wondered if they ever had.
Like clothes hanging from a line
She could see all the shapes of the stories
They had cast her into:
The dutiful child, the sensitive niece,
The brave friend, the smart student,
The solitary young woman.
And yet, she was none of them.
For the very first time since her realization
Of her new condition, she felt elated.
She inhabited that threshold for a moment
Of actualized possibilities as a rainbow arc
Leading into the realm of deep longing,
The realm of the soul.
Twilight was approaching in the West.
Someone closed the window
In the mourning room.
It was chilly outside.
A woman lit two white candles.
A few kept vigil all night long.
And as they prayed, Alice felt a subtle shift
Like invisible wings growing on her
Ethereal shoulders, and a circle of light
Calling her home.
She soared beyond the beams and the roof
Into the vast, dark space high above.
The stars twinkled at unimaginable distances.
What was soaring anyway?
She was no longer a conscious, earthy body
But expanded, pointed awareness itself.
As she spiralled into the unknown
Spirit welcomed her back.
