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?