The Process of Becoming
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Anais Nin
In the process of becoming
loss occurs
at first it is little things
like a silver friendship ring
given in grade school,
which was dropped between the laughter
and the tears of growing up.
As we mature and age
larger items are lost in the process
a photo of an old lover,
a pet buried in the backyard garden
of a house in the Midwest;
a house once shared by parents and siblings.
Finally,
as one approaches the end
of physical life
the last things to go
are short-term memory,
the ability to see the beauty of a rose,
the ability to hear the cry of a grandchild,
and then the individual passes
into the next word.
Is the soul born into the next world
as the body was born into this world
naked and crying?
