Crossing the Poison River     Listen:    

Crossing the "poison river" is an image from my childhood, from a game my suster and I used to play endlessly on rainy days when we could not go outside . . . Our game was to contrive some artifice – bridge, boat, magic scarf, someone – to get us across this "poison river" between the rugs (in grandmother's living room) that seemed safe. As adults, when we come to the barrier between belief and embodiment, we must confront our fears of radical change, of making a terrible mistake with the time we have, and challenge our fears of death. Call requires crossing. The Poison River is a dividing line . . . Commitment is required to cross over into another way of being in the world. At the edge of the Poison River, it is possible to believe something wholeheartedly, and still not do it.

Papa grieves for me
Old friends call me a fool
A naive dweeb trying to save the world
Each day I lurch
Into another pothole
But to turn back now
Would do murder to my soul